Barcelona

Two nervous young American cousins stationed in Barcelona adapt to a world in which the privilege of being American offers little peace of mind, and where a dearth of evidence, sympathy and understanding prevents any moral or cultural justification of their own way of life.

The young men (one based on Stillman himself), find themselves living the lives of grown men -- doing the work of men, traveling, attracting and bedding grown, worldly women, but they are far from understanding the responsibility of mind and heart that goes along with it. Whit Stillman again chooses bland, thin young actors, MODELS on which to "hang" this movie, as though it were an expensive gown-- the same could be said of THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, and METROPOLITAN, his first film.

Keeping the camera always at a moderate, comfortable distance from the cast, he effectively prohibits the viewer from making any real connection with the characters -- leading many to write his movies off as "shallow." This technique robs the movie of some important emotion, but Stillman seems more interested in teaching than entertaining. He has another, alternate, and very possibly superior definition of "meat" in storytelling. Stillman resists the use of a bevy of seduction tools like over-editing, music, and "romance" -- a decision that leads, in the end, to a seductive style similar Italo Calvino's brash artlessness in storytelling.

Though the movie is full of "thoughts," the characters nevertheless find themselves REACTING their way, thoughtlessly, toward adulthood. It's torturous to watch these characters grope, solipsize and mis-calculate, but (we must decide eventually), one does not have to enjoy a film in order that it be excellent and instructive -- BARCELONA is.

Watching the film, one feels the frustration of everyone involved, from the writer/director to the key grip -- to me, commiserating with this immense, well-worded frustration/triumph seems a valuable way to spend 104 minutes, counting previews.

This is one of those movies that get better with age. I first saw it ten years ago, when Mira Sorvino was an unknown actress, and I was surprised to learn later that she wasn't really Spanish. (I lived in Spain for five years, so I'm not easily fooled.) If you've been to Barcelona, you'll like the glowing glimpses of the city, sun-drenched during the day, lit by neon and fireworks at night. There is much charming, often subtle, humor in the film. Who could resist Taylor Nichols dancing alone in his dining room while reading the Bible? Or Chris Eigeman using a felt tip pen to change anti-American graffiti from "American pigs" to "American deer"? Sure, the film is talky, but it doesn't take itself too too seriously.

Barecelona is a vastly underrated movie that achieved little success outside of art-house theatres on its release. This is a shame because the movie is both intelligent, funny and has broad appeal.

It concerns the adventures of two Americans who find themselves in Barcelona in the early Eighties at the height of the cold war. Ted is an uptight and repressed businessman while Fred is his airforce cousin who's a great deal more relaxed. The film starts with Fred forcing himself on his reluctant cousin's hospitality having just arrived in Barcelona.

Yet this isn't a buddy movie. In fact, it's very hard to classify and is by no means typical of an American movie. It's far more European in style.

The movie is about clashes of cultures and it's here that the humour is generated. Fred and Ted's differing attitudes and intelligence levels rub up against each other, and the old debate about the differences between male and female outlooks get a look in too. But the largest culture clash is that of urban left-wing Northern Spain versus the naturally conservative and bullish Americanism. This sounds heavy and intellectual but it isn't - the film makes fun of the American culture of living according self-help guides, for example, but also makes fun of a Spanish journalist-cum-philosopher who turns out to be equally shallow.

The strongest elements of the movie are the script, which is as tight as any top-notch sitcom, and also the cast. There are some excellent performances all around from some very strong actors. Fans or Mira Sorvino won't get to see a great deal of her, however, as she has a relatively minor supporting role.

The film is effectively a celebration of Barcelona and also of the situations that arise when different cultures meet. This might make it hard for some Americans to warm to but, ironically, that merely underlines the movie's main theme - that the world is bigger than the American continent and infinitely wider in its cultural scope.

This very unusual movie exudes such charm and creates a great well of sympathy for its anxious and innocent central characters.

They find themselves throughout in worlds they find alien - a world of puerile anti-Americanism, of foreign women, and either commercial sales or the Navy ("well, you were ROTC, weren't you?" said disparagingly to a former bond trader now Navy officer).

The movie is very funny, the main American characters very likeable, naive, impressionable and voluble, the Spanish male character and several of the Spanish female characters, enjoyably detestable in every way.

There were two things I particularly enjoyed. First, every American who has lived in Europe for any period of time will find the movie rings all kinds of bells of memory - the woeful ignorance but insufferable patronizing tone of Europeans discoursing on American history and politics (e.g., the whole discourse on the "terrible union AFL-CIA that subverted democratic movements in Europe" is a hoot). Many young Europeans have exhibited since the War such an astonishing combination of ignorance, facile categorization and jealousy toward American life, history and policy that the American finds himself suddenly overwhelmed by both uninformed European prejudice and an astonishing unwillingness to be educated about a country that Americans obviously know far better than the lecturers. This movie is almost a tribute to that suffering.

Second, this movie is a nice antidote to the usual pedestal-placing of women, particularly foreign women, as the pawns of men. In this, the women are FAR more predatory and exhibit a deceit that is commonplace in most movies about male wolfishness. It's nice to see the tables turned.

The movie is also quite good on the relationship between two young Chicago men - and the way in which their lives as children affect their continuing view of each other - and how that changes.

The movie is off-beat, and has a peculiar pace. Do pay attention because there are about 5 female characters who are easy to confuse. Do see it- you'll enjoy it. (Oh, and in contradiction to the reviewer below, I think it quite normal, though funny, for a man to happen to speak - even though still in bed - to a girlfriend about his worry that he may be shaving the wrong way).

During the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, two American cousins and childhood friends, who are now a businessman and a naval officer (played by Taylor Nichols and Chris Eigeman) get to live some time in Barcelona, where they face (but finally overcome) the political distrust of many Spaniards. Director Whit Stillman lived some time in Spain and he surely based part of the movie on his own experiences. The movie is fine skewing the unthinking Antiamericanism of Europe's intellectual class (though Stillman is too much of a gentleman to be too biting in his criticism). Sometimes the dialogue is foolish when it tries to be witty (as when the Americans try to explain to some Spaniards the greatness of Hamburgers) but mostly the screenplay is quite fine. Stillman is an interesting filmmaker if only because his preppy conservative point of view is not often showed on movies. Mira Sorvino plays one of the Spanish girls in one of her earlier roles.