French writer-director Cédric
Klapisch's movies are fun to watch because he's got a gift for
achieving a seemingly impossible balance. He can vividly capture the
uniqueness of his locales (like Paris or Barcelona) but make his
stories appealingly universal.
In When the Cat's Away, he
shot in Parisian neighborhoods where camera crews usually avoid,
giving the film's neighborhood a sort of hometown feel. Yet, many of
his characters have stresses and setbacks that seem quite familiar
on this side of the pond.
That's certainly true of his 2002
hit L'auberge espagnole.
The title, meaning literally
"Spanish Inn or Tavern," is also French slang for
"free for all" and makes a nod to the mostly Catalan
setting for the tale. Klapisch manages to maintain a loose
atmosphere without falling into incoherence. There are dozens of
characters, intentionally confusing situations and a notably
disorienting atmosphere.
Fortunately, most of the film is
told from the point of view of a sad but earnest Parisian college
student named Xavier (Klapisch regular Romain Duris). Xavier isn’t
sure what to do with himself now that his school days are almost
through, but his father has a lead on a possible job with the
European government involving the Spanish economy. To be eligible,
he needs to take a master’s course in Barcelona for a year. This
is unsettling for his demanding girlfriend Martine (Audrey Tautou,
who’s as prickly as she was lovable in Amélie) and nearly traumatic for his smothering mom (Martine
Demaret).
Xavier finds the application for
the Erasmus scholarship he received overwhelming. Longing for a
simpler life, he quickly discovers that Barcelona offers nothing of
the sort.
With only a rudimentary grasp of
Spanish, Xavier quickly learns that he and other newcomers to Spain
suffer because they only know the Castilian dialect (the one spoken
around Madrid) and not the local Catalonian tongue spoken locally.
The only living arrangements he can make are with a group of fellow international students including an English girl named Wendy (Kelly Reilly), the Spanish Soledad (Cristina Brondo), a Dane named Lars (Christian Pagh), and an Italian named Allesandro (Federico D’Anna). The group communicates through a smattering of English, and answering the phone when relatives call can be tricky. They also have to deal with the fact that each has a different standard of cleanliness (Wendy’s is considerably higher than everyone else’s).
When their landlord raises their
rent, they even have to bring in Isabelle (Cécile De France, who
won a Most Promising Actress César, or French Oscar), a Belgian
whom Xavier fancies.
Things get dicier as Xavier
gradually befriends Anne-Sophie, a lonely fellow French exile
(Judith Godrèche, Ridicule)
with a workaholic husband. With a spouse who’s so into his
neurology gig that he uses his breakfast to demonstrate brain
functionality, it’s easy to see why she’d rather spend her ample
free time with the affectionate and deeply confused Xavier.
Klapisch and the cast manage to
keep all of these folks distinct and likable. One thing that helps
is that their Barcelona experiences are like what many experience in
college in any part of the world. Xavier’s initial disorientation
gives way to a keen survival instinct that Anne-Sophie lacks. Many
incidents like the collapsing long distance relationships that
Xavier and his roommates suffer are ones that just about anyone can
go through.
Klapisch also uses an interesting
“form follows function” approach to the narrative. His time
lapse shots of Xavier going from office to office might be a little
cheesy, but they give the impression of his boredom without
spreading it to the audience. Klapisch also finds inventive ways to
indicate how mountainous the paperwork is for Xavier’s scholarship
or how easy it is to get lost in a big city.
L’Auberge
Espagnole is shot in High
Definition or HD, a digital format that seems well suited for the
locale. Barcelona’s brightly painted buildings seem to glow
incandescently. While it’s hardly a death knell to film, L’Auberge
Espagnole demonstrates you can make a great looking movie even
if it wasn’t shot on 35 mm film.