Remember I asked you for your favorite movie at the time of the International Stash Busting Giveaway? You told me, and I made a list of all I have not watch yet. And, I did not tell you what my favorite movie is. Well, at the moment, it's Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." This is an old post from when I started blogging. I think most of my bloggy friend have not read it yet, so give it a try...I'll be back in a week or so, I'm off to Puerto Rico for a relaxing vacation. See you then. Enjoy!!
Oh my!! What a movie!. This is Woody Allen’s resurrection as a great cineaste, as an artist. For those who have not seen the movie: stop reading, watch the movie and come back to read my post. Those who already watched the movie feel free to keep reading, and to leave a comment telling me that I’m totally crazy or that I’m good at this.
First of all, the settings. Although I’ve never been to Barcelona, this movie takes you there in a wonderful tour of astonishing landmarks, and the most romantic settings. The music of Giulia and the Tellarines, still impossible to classify, totally set the mood of the laid back character of a summer vacation in Spain.
Let me state that Javier Bardem, besides being everything that a girl with a good pair of eyes would appreciate; is an amazing actor. He is totally able to camouflage himself into the character that he is in every movie.
As Juan Antonio, Javier Bardem personifies the perfect Latin lover: laid back, bohemian, romantic, and self centered artist. I think that he himself personalizes the demands of a happy, passionate and fulfilled (in every sense) life.
Vicky and Cristina are, on the other hand, two different elements that we find in practical life. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) uses her intelligence to get ahead. She has plans, and deadlines. She believes that she is even-tempered until she met Juan Antonio. Cristina (Scarlet Johanssen) is the kind of girl that is usually called immature and childish, and at the same time she is curious and adventurous. Cristina has a zest for life, a continuous self-soul search. This characteristic is usually gone in most of us by the time we have kids. From then on we become more Vickis than Cristinas.
I don’t know if Allen planned his film this way but the way I see “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is as a parody of life itself. Juan Antonio representing life itself demands freedom to express himself, to live. He represents new experiences, passion, and the unattainable perfect love. And Maria Elena challenges every bit of common sense in life with the most amazing display of tantrums thrown by a wild woman in love. I loved her dialogues half in English and half in Spanish. Oh!! I wish that speaking with that heavy accent would make us all Hispanic women beautiful and sexy like she is…
Obviously this film is lusciously sensual and sexy.
But if you try to get a moral from the story, I would say that “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” is about the ability to turn things around. To try new things. To do what others call a “failure” like the marriage of Juan Antonio and Maria Elena, and turn it into and act of courage, like Juan Antonio did when he decided to have the woman who tried to kill him under his own roof. To go to where you have not been before and to find happiness. It’s about being able to bear unbearable passions in your heart and to canalize them into something amazing like the art of Juan Antonio and Maria Elena. Moreover like the art of Gaudi transcending through ages.
It is about saying “thanks but no thanks”, and not to settle for any less than your dreams and your desires. About perhaps not knowing what you want, but knowing what you don’t want. Like Cristina, just keep looking, keep trying, don’t stop dreaming of what life demands from us to give us who we are in return.
P.
