Sunday, September 14, 2008

movie review.


Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Directed and written by Woody Allen.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love Woody Allen. If you ask me who has inspired me most in my life I'll give you a short list of names: My father, Charles Bukowski, Hayao Miyazaki, Ian Mackaye, and Woody Allen. I clearly remember the first time I saw Annie Hall. When Alvy says he can't go into a movie after the opening credits have started and he asks Annie if she wants to get coffee for two hours, I knew I had found the world's best filmmaker, ever.

After I saw Annie Hall, I wanted to find as many more Woody Allen movies as possible. Some were simply laugh out loud funny, and others were mostly thoughtful and remarkably bleak. Whether he wanted to make one laugh or cry, I became attached to Allen. Sadly, after the 70s, his movies started to become really, really hit or miss. Either they were brilliant (Deconsructing Harry) or horribly lackluster (Everyone Says I Love You). Recently, as far as I'm concerned, his past two movies have been of the "eh" variety (Scoop and Cassandra's Dream). Luckily, his latest film is fantastic.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a movie anyone who has ever felt love, passion, or pain could find something to relate to. The movie follows two best frien
ds who spend two months in Spain, at first hoping for a simple vacation but finding themselves starting to question their perceptions and beliefs on love. At the beginning of the movie, Vicky characterizes herself as a rational lover. She's engaged to a successful man who she says values the same thing she values most: commitment. Cristina is passionate and irrational, finding relationships with men to be boring unless there's a sense of excitment and surprise to it. They both meet a Spanish artist named Juan Antonio who, in a no-beating-around-the-bush manner, asks them both to come with him to the small town of Oviedo and sleep with him. Vicky is hesitant, Cristina is excited. Without giving too much away, Cristina begins a relationship with Juan, much to the displeasure of Vicky, for reasons that must be found out through watching the movie. Vicky's husband also comes to visit her in Barcelona, lending herself to questioning her love for him.

The movie delves into the quintessential question of, "What is love?" Is it one definable thing or is it amorphous and changing? Maria Elena, Juan's ex wife, is quoted as saying that "only unfulfilled love is romantic." Vicky says shes happy
with a sensible and modern man as her husband, but finds herself bored when all he can seem to talk about whilst in Spain is high definition television and golfing. On the other hand, Cristina finds it hard to keep up with Juan and Maria, who moved back in with Juan when she tried to kill herself. Her love for spontaneous and surprising relationships becomes dull when she realizes some things are just too much for her to handle. These two women's idea's of love are the basis for the film: why do we love who we love, why do we love the way we love, is there a right way to love?, a wrong way? The questions never quite get answered, but that's the point. Love is complex: it's not the same for any one person.

This movie really is classic Woody Allen as far as the completely dead on portrayal of human's goes. Allen is a master of dissecting the human
mind and putting it into simple sentences, or even simple expressions on actor's faces. This was the first movie of his I have really enjoyed in a while. He's back to form, back to what he does best: portraying humans acting like humans.

The character Juan Antonio and his father rem
inded me a lot of my own father, so much that I called my Dad right as I got out of the movie to tell him how great it was and how he needs to see it.

This was a seriously fantastic movie. See it.

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