Wednesday, September 10, 2008

"...only unfulfilled love can be romantic..."


if i've likened the experience of viewing woody allen's romantic comedies to taking a walk in the park, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a blissful stroll through the winding streets of Catalonia. the prolific director's latest offering is refreshingly apt- a decidedly mature film that, true to form, is at once light and tragic. it's more than what i would have expected from the auteur after years of creative atrophy (ok, Match Point, while certainly laudable, is little more than a fleshed-out subplot from an earlier and much more complete opus). i guess, for the time being, he's back; i say we welcome him with open arms.

(i suppose this is the part where i warn of !SPOILERS AHEAD!, though i recognize that this will reduce my already-negligible readership drastically. oh well, continue at your own peril.)

anyway, i usually refrain from writing conventional movie reviews, as they are now more ubiquitous than ever (everyone's a critic, blah blah), so i'll call this a personal recommendation instead. also, my approach to cinema is an irrational one, as i rely largely on my visceral reactions to guide my opinions about each work. in this case, i liked the movie because it fed me (like carrie bradshaw skipping her dinner and buying Vogue instead), it taught me a practical truth, and it overloaded my senses in a most pleasant way. never happier am i than when provoked visually, mentally, and emotionally all at the same time.

in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, deceptively ham-fisted dialogue belies the film's deeper message, which was just outside of my reach up until the final frame. perhaps distracted by the unorthodox narration, bright colors, and beautiful soundtrack, i lost myself completely in the diegesis and did not come up for air until that climactic fade-out. ultimately, this was a story about romantic love and the human folly that prevents it from ever reaching its true destination.
it's apparent that the characters' relationships are basically a series of tragic misfires. vicky (rebecca hall) is ready to marry a boorish WASP, presumably because it never occurred to her that she might one day find a more exciting prospect (yes, she's dull as well, but we get the feeling that years of tedious company has stripped her of any imagination she might have once possessed). best friend cristina (scarlett johansson), who aspires to a sort of sophomoric bohemian lifestyle that would enable and encourage her flights of fancy, finds herself in over her head when she just can't handle a polyamorous relationship with juan antonio (javier bardem) and maria elena (penelope cruz).
maria elena, for her part, would have ended up with juan antonio's father in an ideal world, the two being the only genuinely gifted artists in the bunch (her unique style having been co-opted and his pearls-before-swine poetry left unpublished and kept hidden from the world). juan antonio is a charming but parasitic hedonist who would benefit from years of solitary reflection (which his restlessness would prevent), but vicky is arguably most suited for him, though circumstances keep them apart, of course.


miscommunication, bad timing, thwarted attempts at romance- such is the nature of this film. though tragic and disheartening in ways, it remains a joy to watch. even if it's true that after thousands of years of civilization, human beings have never learned how to love (as juan antonio's father suggests), at least we can learn how to appreciate the irony.

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