In "Vicky Christina Barcelona", Woody Allen reinvents the notion of schools of loves through the conflicting visions of two friends in their early 20's, visiting Barcelona for the first time.
Rebecca Hall is Vicky, the sensed and practical one, she's no less romantic than the average girl but she has loving rhyming with living, she takes love seriously and so her coming marriage with Doug (Chris Messina) a young junior manager who, if not the fire of senseless passion, doesn't lack the promising capability to be a good 'provider'.
Scarlett Johannsson is Christina, the passionate Ying to Vicky's wise Yan, she's an idealistic woman who envisions love as a sort of omelet that doesn't go without breaking eggs, there must have a good deal of suffering and hurting, proportionally to the heights of passions to be reached. She didn't find the true love, but she's still at an age where questions have the edge over answers. And it's interesting how their occupations reflect their personalities.
Vicky is a linguist who came to Barcelona to study Catalan identity, Christina is an aspiring director or photographer, an artist to make it short. The two girls have fundamentally opposed views on love, but they won't amount to much in Barcelona, the third side of a fascinating love triangle. After having romanticized the Big Apple and then deconstructed its romantic myth, coming totally full circle with his cherished hometown, Woody Allen embarked on a European trip in the early 2000's and the halt in Barcelona was certainly one of the most notable and inspired.
With three dozens of movies on the clock, Allen sure acquired a unique talent to make a city feel alive through the film, and with the Gaudi signature, the cathedrals and the restaurants open at midnight, we know it's a matter of time before any convictions is swept up by the romantic mood of city. Indeed, with a town like Barcelona in the backdrop, half a Casanova's work is done. And when Javier Bardem as Juan Antonio comes and proposes the girls a little trip to Oviedo, granted he embodies all the suave charm of the Spanish lover, but he's like endorsed by the hypnotic beauty of the city.
It's an old trick many womanizers apply, at a time where you had to cruise and be charming on the spot, not behind a screen, they generally went to the spot flourishing with tourists. Any lady-killer could stroll in Paris in Luxembourg Gardens during summer, a free visit to an English tourist enamored with the city would be the kind of proposals that'd rarely encounter a "no". But while Vicky can see behind the game and Christina just get in the flow, and before we know it, the 'no' became a 'yes'. Not sure the trick would work in America with all the sexual harassment talk but in 2008, everybody found it romantic ... so it's not just a matter of geographical context.
The trip doesn't follow exactly the trajectory we expect, or maybe it does, but just take a little detour, allowing the complicity to blossom between Juan Antonio, the tormented artist and Vicky. Juan Antonio had struck Chrsitina's attention because of some backstory about the conflicting relationship he had with his ex-wife, but the character he shows to Vicky is oddly matching her own approach to life and art, to the point that her attention toward her fiancée gradually slips.
The trouble with cities like Barcelona, cities with a soul, is that you can't tell to which extent they influence your perceptions. Does Vicky appreciate Juan's company because she's in the perfect context for that, holiday, summer, relaxation or is the attraction genuine? To complicate things a little, her fiancé comes, to celebrate a first wedding in Spain, while Juan gets back to Christina. Something very interesting happens then in the mind of Vicky, that doesn't need any fancy analysis, it's summed up in one exchange: Juan says she and her fiancé are made for each other, and in a typical Allenian move, she's offended.
Why is that serious relationships or ambitions that imply steady comforts are perceived as negative? To the film's defense, this is not what "Vicky Christina Barcelona" advocates, it does provide a nice glimpse on Spanish Bohemian life and I don't know anyone who wouldn't be tempted to live with a glass of wine everyday, painting and making love or living in a ménage a trois. In the very context of the film, it is appealing, but the antidote is clearly provided by the fourth and most memorable character of the film, Penelope Cruz as the ex-wife. Earning her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, this is not just a credit to her talent but to her weight in a rather lighthearted film.
Before her entrance, the film made an effort to portray Juan as an attractive man and men like Doug as boring and "knowing nothing about passion" and only leading to failing and hypocritical couples such as the one formed by Chris Dunn and Patricia Clarkson.. If the film doesn't strike for its subtle characterization (Allen generally excels in this game even for minor characters), at least it provides a character who's so passionate you just want to take the next plane not to New York, but to Alaska. As Maria Elena, Penelope Cruz plays a jealous, envious, suicidal, possessive, luscious woman, who takes art to a level of destruction and destruction to the level of art, to the point that what starts like a sensual adventure with three people finally prompts Christina to pull herself together and leave.
It is a credit to Allen for not having surrendered to a total triumph of passion over reason, the ending suggests that when it comes to love, nothing is really what it's all cracked up to be and sun is always sunnier in the other side of the Atlantic, especially under the sky of Barcelona.
