Europeans are crazy and unhappy, but at least they're not dead

Rebecca Hall (Vicky) and Scarlett Johansson (Christina).
Also in this picture: Barcelona

Vicky Christina Barcelona fits well into the "Woody abroad" genre that
comprises pretty much any Woody Allen film not made in New York
(correction: not made in Manhattan). Spain is a series of attractive
tourist views, Spanish people are either having sex, looking steamy or
gustating in a sexy way, so watch out any bland, parboiled American
ingenues that happen to fall into this fragrant and meaty broth.

The film starts with the arrival of the eponymous heroines in the same
city, all of which is told to us by a flat, sardonic narration that
continues through the film, giving an air of Lars von Trier's Dogville
to the piece: whatever happens on-screen is provided with a stark,
dismissive description, the effect of which is to distance the action
(which is schematic at best) even further from the viewer.


The title song, too adds a sarcastic note to Woody Allen's Spanish genre study

What does happen is an absurd intertwining of lusts, doubts and
desires, which tease tall moody Vicky and blonde sexpot Christina into
a frenzy around the irredeemably macho presence of Javier Bardem. As
such it's not a bad effort: the girls loosen up under the Spanish sun,
and Bardem hams it up as the unshaven, bacchanalian stereotype of
masculinity. But the whole operation is so diagrammatic and so undercut
by the cruel narration that you have to start wondering what Woody
really thinks that he is doing.

That only really becomes apparent when Penelope Cruz hits the screen
and saves the film. My god, I am really turning into a big PC fan.
She seems to be capable of doing anything, saving anything, and here,
as Bardem's ex-wife Maria Elena she breaks through the film's study of
types with a performance that is as absurd as it is riveting. Somehow,
despite her unbelievably exaggerated manner, she seems to be the only
real person on the screen, while the others are just playing their parts.

So the film keeps going, people do stuff and the narrator's deadpan,
snarky manner reminds us that it's all ridiculous, all pretty pointless, like.
When the film does finish, the statement it makes appears to be
pretty bleak too. Vicky returns to America, to live with the husband
that she does not love, Christina goes back too, still searching,
having been unable to find satisfaction, even in a pre-lapsarian menage
a trois.

I might be completely wrong, but it seems that the wider point that
Woody is making is pretty unfavourable about his fellow Americans:
Barcelona offers both girls a glimpse of how life could be, and both of
them are too scared to seize it. The Spanish people in the film (who
are of course cartoon Spaniards) by contrast carry on with their
crazed, passion-filled existences. They might not be very happy, but
they are very much alive.

I have to declare that I'm a very big Woody Allen fan and would be
prepared to watch anything that he makes. Sometimes that leads to great
pleasure (as in the classics of the late seventies and early eighties),
and sometimes to confusion and boredom (as in the execrable Match
Point, which I really hated). Vicky Christina Barcelona is neither a
high water mark nor a low tide on that scale, but it is a work apart.
It seems to be that it's much darker than most of Woody's
output, a deeply alienated analysis of what is wrong with America (we're
talking tail-end Bush era here),albeit through the means of desultory
comedy. Without Penelope Cruz it would have been a lot darker still.
She's the star, or should be. Next time you take a trip abroad Woody,
why not kick back and let Penelope run the show?

Fatih Akin's Soul Kitchen

"Heimatfilms were noted for their rural settings, sentimental tone and simplistic morality, and centered around love, friendship, family and non-urban life. Also, the polarity between old and young, tradition and progress, rural and urban life was articulated." -Wikipedia

With films like Against the Wall, Crossing the Bridge and The Edge of Heaven, Fatih Akin has set a high aesthetic bar at which his newest work inevitably stumbles. Which is not to say that the film is a failure by any means, simply that it must be judged as a minor work in this impressive directors oeuvre.

Set in Hamburg's seedy demi-monde, the film relates the fortunes of the Soul Kitchen restaurant and its unhappy-go-lucky proprietor, with a meat-and-two-veg narrative arc from wretched normality through multiple adversities to a slightly more hopeful normality. And while the restaurant moves up-scale gastronomically the story remains comfort food throughout, providing plenty of opportunities for comic set pieces and tragi-comic misunderstandings.

What we end up with is a patchwork of scenes, connected by a narrative strand that connects property speculation, prostitution, drugs and music. None of it quite makes sense, but this is a film ruled by the heart and not the head. What it lacks in precision it makes up for in warmth.

In general the performances are impressive, and the unavoidable Moritz Bleibtreu (who seems to be compulsory casting in any German film worth its salt) is particularly engaging as the protagonist's jailbird brother, constantly swinging his prayer beads as hustles.

The film's lightness of touch is perhaps its saving grace: the music complements the story without dominating; food and cookery play a subordinate, if enjoyable role, but never do we get too bogged down in the niceties of nouvelle cuisine. And this must be the first major film in which Skype plays such a major role. Product placement perhaps but very realistically done.

As an ironic take on the Heimatfilm, the interplay of cultures - Greek, Turkish, German, whatever - is handled in a no-nonsense workmanlike way. Perhaps it takes a German of Turkish extraction to do this. My feeling is that other German directors would be more sheepish in their handling of these issues.

In conclusion I'd say that the film is good, not great, and shows that Fatih Akin can also make a gentle, feel-good comedy without compromising his higher aesthetic achievements.

Are you sitting comfortably?

High above Athens stands the Church of Agios Isidorou. From here, sitting on benches that form a horseshoe of seating around the diminutive church, you can look down on the breathtaking spread of the city, born of the unfortunate union of reinforced concrete with laissez-faire urban planning.

As you sit, you can also enjoy amusingly phrased signs like this one, attached to the back of the pole that holds up the strings of fairy lights that illuminate the church at night. It says: "Peak hours may necessitate that you let other people sit on your lap."
Get set for peace, love and understanding.

Bad husband

One morning we drove over to Hook Norton in North Oxfordshire, where they have an excellent brewery. On the way back we stopped at the Rollright Stones, a wonderfully gnarled and atmospheric mini-Stonehenge. [See previous blog post]

On the path leading to the stones the following devastating but amusing sign was on display:



Someone was in big trouble that night...