L'appartamento spagnolo

I think anyone who when young has moved to a foreign city, especially alone, would immediately recognize and appreciate the truths apparent in this film. Certainly everyone's experiences are different but some things, the initial disorientation, the difficulties and pleasure of adapting to a new and very different set of friends, the joys of eventual acceptance and adaption of a new routine; these are probably universal. This film depicts all of this very well.

The Spanish Apartment rings especially true for me. Almost ten years ago I moved from NYC to Antwerp for one year then on to Barcelona, where I am living still. I was a bit older than the film's characters (late 20 's) but my experience was eerily similar. I lived just blocks away from their apartment, in Raval, and recognized many of the streets and locales. Myself, a Slovak girl I was dating, three male apartment mates from Bolivia, France and Italy. I made tons of expat friends from all over Europe (many of whom departed long ago) and eventually Spanish friends as well.

I'm older now and settled down but watching this, I was overwhelmed with nostalgia and wished that I could travel back in time if only to relive one of those glorious weekends.

If you've never done anything like this watching The Spanish Apartment may be the next best thing.

The Barcelona tourist office should probably pay me for this.

"L'Auberge Espagnole" collected the audience wherever it was shown. It gathered audience awards on many film festivals all over the world. And it is not strange. We have the ability to watch a cheerful and an astonishing piece of art. And it is wise by the way. "L'Auberge Espagnole" is a very funny comedy about youth and growing up. But most of all it is about the lights and shadows of living in the European Union.

The main character of the film is a French student of economy Xavier. For his future carrier his is sent for one year of studying to Barcelona. In Spain it turns out that the lectures are being given in Catalonian language. That probably doesn't help the increasement of knowledge. But it helps in tightening the relationships inside the group of foreign exchange students. Especially if they rent a big flat together. There are 3 girls: English, Belgian and Spanish, as well as three boys: German, Danish and Italian. Our French guy will also get there. A year is a very long time. Long enough to get close and make friends. And get to know some European stereotypes while trying to break them apart.

Klapisch treats this special case of a process of uniting Europe with humor and without pecky didactism. He comes out of the idea that young people are everywhere just the same. They like jokes. They like to make irresponsible relationships. But they don't neglect their aspirations. The most interesting is the sum of experience of this little community. They live together in the fire of everyday tasks fighting with the surrounding reality. They are full of unusual ideas for life. Young Europeans come back to their countries to take up a life of an adult on their own. They are Europe's hope to fight the many problems of the Union. For example, the terrifying administration system. In the end they proof that not only can they communicate and make friends despite the many differences. But they also now how to live the full of life. And they won't allow taking that full of life away from them.

This is a very well done film showing the life of international students during their "Erasmus year" in Barcelona which by the way is one of the most beautiful towns in Europe and is an ideal location.

The idea itself with all the different languages is great and gives the film an original atmosphere. There are some clichés about the countries but most of them are true! The characters could not better represent their different countries.

Having experienced "Erasmus" on myself during my exchang semester in Italy I can say that is movie is incredibly authentic. I had many experiences which were similar to the characters (except I didn't get laid as often). The movie is also quite funny yet not like all those stupid American college movies.

Finally the movie touches also some important issues like the change from student to work life.

9/10 (I may not be very objective though)

I have long been torn between Madrid and Barcelona, the former a dignified repository of old Spanish architecture and customs (a Catholic parade at 11 PM!) and the latter a Ramblas-rambunctious splash of youth and energy (Oh, that Olympic harbor!). Cédric Klapisch's `L'Auberge Espagnole'(`Euro pudding') now tips the scales to Barcelona for me as I watch a group of 20 somethings negotiate life in a communal apartment. They represent the emerging melting pot of Europe, learning each other's language and purging themselves of racism and sexism. The film is alive with change.

Protagonist Xavier (Romain Duris) is moving from Paris (a city against its type here-repressive and decidedly unromantic) to Barcelona for a year in order to qualify for a business job that demands immediate experience in Spain. Leaving his girlfriend (Audrey Tautou) and his hippie mother behind, he witnesses love in forms his shy French persona would have never encountered, including adultery and lesbianism. That he will be different, more urbane and wise, is preordained by the decision to move; that the director wishes us to see the allegory of a polyglot Europe is all too obvious.

But the photography through the narrow streets, even in the barrios, is muscular and lyrical, especially when it takes us all to the top of the Gaudi Cathedral to survey the messy world below (Xavier eventually comments the world is `badly made').

Beyond my affection for Spain, this film reaffirms for me the salutary effect travel has on the uncertain heart. After one year on his own, Xavier is ready to make a serious decision, but not about Paris vs. Barcelona-it's whether the corporate world that started this string of events is the one he wants or the artful one in his heart. Tennyson's Ulysses says, `I cannot rest from travel.' Xavier, on the other hand, found his rest in travel.

One of the biggest French success of the year 2002, "l'auberge espagnole" was also very well greeted abroad which is quite extraordinary for a French film. It is not difficult to define the reasons of this success. This movie made by one of the most interesting French film-makers of these last years, Cédric Klapisch, presents students coming from all over Europe and gathered all together under the same roof in Barcelona. These students are described like the ones you imagine or you see in everyday life: either untidy, either serious or with a sense of humor. I guess that if the movie worked so well, it is because a lot of students must have recognized themselves in the main characters' portraits and especially Xavier's.

We follow the movie and so his experience abroad as an Erasmus student through his eyes. Xavier is really an ordinary student with his qualities, his faults. An intelligent making with quite a lot of ingenious ideas perfectly expresses his lost mind and his anxiety about the world and being an Erasmus student. On that subject, the best examples can be found in two sequences. The first one is when Xavier asks a woman at university for the papers he has to send to prepare his DEA. When the same woman informs him about the different necessary procedures, all the papers appear on the screen when she is naming them! In the next sequence, Xavier's voice-over confides to the spectator his vision of the modern world. Now, where to find the second example? Well, the scene where Xavier has a thorough medical examination during which Klapisch films his visions is widely sufficient to speak of itself.

Moreover, the director wasn't really interested by his main character's studies. He left this point low-key. He rather put a lot of effort into Xavier's private life, of course, in his love affair with Anne Sophie but also and especially in his relations with his fellow tenants. It is a real friendship story that Klapisch shows us with its moments of happiness but also its arguments and its tensions. Through Xavier's adventure and at the end of his stay, he will have been initiated into life which will make him more mature. The message that the author wanted to transmit isn't difficult to guess. You naively believe that you live in an untidy and complicated world. You mustn't give up but intensively search to get what you want even if it is difficult.

Apart from this, we could also fear that with the topic, Cédric Klapisch wouldn't avoid a trap: the clichés. Let's be frank about it: they are included in the screenplay but the director does his best not to spread them too much in his movie. Then, the screenplay contains convenient and predictable moments: at the airport and before boarding we see Xavier shedding a tear after he left his family. But fortunately the shortcomings of the script stop here. Quite funny dialogs and cool young actors perfectly at ease in their roles make up the whole.

In spite of its weaknesses, "l'auberge espagnole" is to be taken for a success in the movie of young people. Besides, the whole atmosphere it brings out lets us think that this movie is directed primarily to a young audience. Ultimately, the end of the movie and its big success let us suggest that Klapisch succumbed to a fashion that goes right for American cinema: the elaboration of sequels. And indeed, the film-maker currently works on a sequel entitled "les poupées russes". Let's hope that it will be as good as "l'auberge espagnole".