Vicky Cristina Barcelona

 

Director Woody Allen

director on the set

Scarlett Johansson with Woody

Rebecca Hall with Woody

Bardem and Cruz with Woody

Woody on the set

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA                         B+                                                        Spain  (96 mi)  2008  d: Woody Allen

Preserving the template of previous Woody Allen movies, it is no secret that Woody can steal from the best of them, including himself (!), as this attempts to resurrect the romantic comedy magic of Annie Hall (1977).  Using a breezy energy that respects the pulse of its players, it’s actually the first French film Woody Allen has always wanted to make filling the screen with sensuous but superficial characters that have intimate revelations and near inexhaustible bank accounts.  Re-interpreting Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También (2001) and updating Éric Rohmer, we have an idyllic portrait of summer bliss in Barcelona as experienced by two American tourists, Scarlett Johansson as Cristina and Rebecca Hall as Vicky.  Having the good fortune to know someone with a palatial estate there (who turns out to be Patricia Clarkson) who is in the middle of her own midlife doldrums, the girls are surrounded by luxury and the bloom of youth.  Vicky is engaged to Doug (Chris Messina) back in the states, a well-meaning but emptyheaded corporate attorney with an eye on living a comfortable life of stability, wealth and status, where their future together has been mapped out well ahead of time before they ever get married.  Vicky’s life is one of order and structure, where the thought of acting on impulse is simply unthinkable, while Cristina is just the opposite, an utterly unpredictable, dreamy-eyed girl who hasn’t a clue what she wants, who’ll jump into troubling relationships just for the thrill of danger and suspense, but then bale once she feels the least bit pressured.  All this is explained to us through a narrator (Christopher Evan Welch) in a snide and sarcastic tone of understatement who seems to relish the idea of telling it to us straight, leaving the humor and hysterics to the drama queens onscreen.  Almost immediately, the characters play to stereotype, as if the game is poking fun of themselves by floundering in scenes that are as broadly familiarized as possible, with odd little plot tweaks where they must remain in character.  Javier Bardem is spot on as the earnest Latin heart throb Juan Antonio, a bohemian painter who attempts to pick up the two American girls by whisking them to a remote weekend location in Oviedo where they can see a more intimate side of the country and each other.  Vicky, of course, is furious at the mere suggestion while Cristina is enamored with his charms instantly. 

Woody Allen has been writing his own films for so long that as we hear each new line of dialogue, we can literally place them in other character’s mouths from earlier films, for instance, Vicky very much resembles Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, with her pretensions to art and intellect while remaining aloof to romantic inclinations.  Cristina on the other hand sounds at times like the hesitating voice of Woody himself, neurotic and likeable enough to others, but never satisfied, a girl who appreciates the artistic aspirations of others but has no real talent for it herself.  In this film, Juan Antonio plies the girls with music and alcohol and lures them into the beauty of art before attempting to seduce them both, preferably at the same time.  Shot by Javier Aguirresarobe, the cinematographer for Pedro Almodóvar’s TALK TO HER (2002), continually saturating the screen with works of art by Gaudi and Miro and an incessant classical Spanish guitar soundtrack that strangely repeats itself to the rhythm of the film with refrains from a dramatically hushed version of a song called “Barcelona” by Giulia y Los Tellarini, Giulia y los Tellarini - Barcellona "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" - YouTube (2:23), the film is also bathed in golden pastoral hues as the two girls and a guy venture through a series of idyllic rural locations, permeated by a warm summer glow enhanced by the everflowing glasses of Spanish wine.  This kind of upper class milieu has been fertile Woody Allen territory for years, but never punctuated by the rambling pastoral landscapes more typically found in Éric Rohmer romances.  However in Rohmer films, the earthy characters are reflective of the region and emblematic of the pastoral French soil, but here the common theme is American superficiality on display with an overblown appraisal of themselves, usually expressed through a misguided notion that money and class status buys happiness along with the accompanying snooty superiority, always taking themselves much too seriously with little or no understanding of others, such as Cristina’s reluctance to converse with Juan Antonio’s father, who only speaks Spanish. 

Enter Penélope Cruz as Bardem’s ex-wife, whose exaggerated hysterics are priceless, causing Bardem to repeat to her at least twenty times in the film to please “Speak English,” as she continually rants in Spanish and has for years had a resolute refusal to speak English.  Her notion of being a drama queen is put to the test in this movie as under Allen’s direction her hilarity is her utter caricature of herself, yet she steals the film.  Scarlett Johansson’s acting career has suffered under Allen’s direction, as she appears gorgeously appealing but so out of place and emptyheaded all the time, a confused American who brings with her the baggage of immaturity and bad acting.  The screenplay attempts to grapple with this obvious oversight by attributing artistic skills and abilities to her character that are too preposterous to believe, as the audience continues to see her as that glamor girl on the cover of People magazine.  She is simply out acted in every scene, but since the theme of caricature runs throughout, she seems to be playing a bad version of herself, but somehow the brooding, self-centered pretentiousness of it all actually works here as it typifies the theme of American superficiality.  Rebecca Hall on the other hand is impressive and a constant delight, especially her earlier scenes where she sternly and appropriately fends off Juan Antonio with an indignant aplomb.  When she falls under his spell, however, her dizzying mood swings questioning what she really wants out of life are equally appealing, even as they are subjugated by the less than believable storyline. Her husband Doug?  He’s like a dull, grown up yet stupefyingly successful version of a now subservient and completely ass-wiping Ferris Bueller.  What’s there to think about?  The emphasis isn’t really on explicit bedroom scenes or in providing laughs, but instead finds a beautiful rhythm that delves into an intricate examination of the complex nature of relationships.  But of course, everything begins and ends with the virtues and values found only in America.  This Mediterranean fling only makes sense under the intoxicating summer swoon of reverie and make believe. 

Ingrid Bergman Tribute: Only One Night (En enda natt)

 

Director Gustaf Molander

Ingrid Bergman as a child with her father

1937 wedding day with Petter Lindström 

Ingrid Bergman in costume

Bergman in 1939

Ingrid Berman Tribute: ONLY ONE NIGHT (En enda natt)                       C+                 Sweden  (90 mi)  1939  d: Gustaf Molander

A rarely seen film, among the earliest appearances of Ingrid Bergman, but she was already a star in Sweden, voted by a poll of 30,000 Swedish moviegoers as the most admired movie star in 1937, even above Greta Garbo, appreciated for her beauty and grace, as well as her natural acting style.  Obtaining a scholarship for the Royal Dramatic Theatre School in Stockholm at the age of 17, she was discovered by Swedish director Gustav Molander, who taught acting at the school and was the brother of the Theatre School director Olof Molander, with Greta Garbo among his students, immediately realizing Bergman possessed a unique quality, leaving school after only one year, as she was hired by Sweden’s largest movie studio, Svensk Filmindustri, and began making films full-time in the mid-1930’s.  The Swedish film industry in which Ingrid Bergman received her early training was one of the most advanced, technically and artistically, outside of Hollywood, and while he did not end up directing her debut film, it was Molander who supported Bergman and gave her self-confidence, teaching her “how to underplay, to be absolutely sincere and natural, and never try to be cute.  Always be yourself, and always learn your lines.”  Known as an actresses' director, Molander was crucial to the development of the Swedish film industry itself, starting out as a writer before directing films, one of few Swedish directors who easily made the transition from silent films to sound successfully, making over 70 films in just over half a century in a wide variety of genres, where the 1930’s were arguably his most prolific, with several considered the Swedish Golden Age’s central work.  Working with actresses Eva Dahlbeck, Harriet Andersson, and Ingrid Thulin, all more commonly associated with the films of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, while also making six films with the young Ingrid Bergman in the 1930’s, which paved the way for her international career, where she went on to win three Academy Awards, two for best actress, GASLIGHT (1944) and ANASTASIA (1956), and one for best supporting actress, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974).  A master of serious comedy, all of Molander’s most successful films can rightly be described as melodramas, where the appeal was heard all the way across the ocean to America, as several of his stories were purchased by American companies and remade for American audiences, including INTERMEZZO (1936) and A WOMAN’S FACE (1938), both of which starred Ingrid Bergman, with INTERMEZZO (1939) becoming Bergman’s American Hollywood debut, while A WOMAN’S FACE (1941) was remade with Joan Crawford.  It’s fun to see Bergman in her native Sweden at such an early stage of her career, knowing what an acclaimed, international star she would eventually become, fluent in Swedish, English, German, Italian, and French, acting in all of them, while speaking Italian to her own children and English professionally.  Never before had she been so beautifully portrayed, exuding elegance and photographic radiance in some memorable costumes, where she remains among the most contemporary of the classic Hollywood stars, listed at #4 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest female stars, AFI's 100 YEARS…100 STARS.       

Bergman didn’t really become a star until the 1940’s, when her supporting role in the 1942 classic Ingrid Bergman Tribute: Casablanca effectively changed the course of her entire career.  Appearing in eleven films in her native Sweden before the age of twenty-five, Bergman’s characters were always plagued with uncertainty, fear, and anxiety.  Though she was far from enthusiastic about the script, describing it as “a piece of junk,” she agreed to make this film, which is the one the studio wanted to make, but only if they would allow her the starring role in A WOMAN’S FACE, a distinctly unglamorous role where she is bitter and horribly disfigured from a fire, a completely unsympathetic character, allowing her to stretch her range and versatility, wanting to be more than just a pretty face.  While this film was shot before A WOMAN’S FACE, it was released a year afterwards, where Bergman’s co-star is Edvin Adolphson, a notorious flirt in his early 40’s, known for his matinee idol good looks, appearing in more than 500 films going back to the silent era, and played a significant role in helping Bergman get her first screen appearance, directing her in a light comedy during her summer vacation from drama school, where they became lovers, despite their age difference and the fact that he had a wife and child at home, yet they remained friends for life.  Bearing some resemblance to Ingmar Bergman’s Sawdust and Tinsel (Gycklarnas afton) (1953), this is another film that takes place in a traveling carnival show, featuring rough-edged and hardened characters on the fringe of society who lead tempestuous lives, never staying in any one place for long, never really calling anyplace home, so the traveling road show is really their familiar place.  Adapted by Gösta Stevens, the screenwriter of most of Molander's best films, from a novel by Danish author Harald Tandrup, Valdemar Moreaux (Edvin Adolphson) is one of the carnival barkers at the merry-go-round, yet his distinction is that he lives with Helga Mårtensson (Aino Taube), the owner of a carnival, affectionately calling her by her last name, which, coincidentally enough, is also the name of the traveling show.  There’s an honest simplicity to their lives, as they seem to have a loving, yet carefree and easy going relationship, filled with off-handed humor and sarcastic remarks, with nothing really holding either one of them down, having moved around a lot in their lives, describing themselves as rootless free spirits, so a certain insecurity prevails even in the best of times.  While establishing an easy rhythm accentuating many of the featured carnival shows, the wealthy landowner Count Magnus von Brede (Olof Sandborg), a former army colonel, whose property the carnival occupies, is seen off in the distance with his beautiful yet independent-minded young ward Eva (Ingrid Bergman), a Renaissance woman visiting for the summer who is studying for her doctorate in philosophy, yet we also see her toting a rifle in her hand for shooting ducks, while later we see her performing a charming song at the piano.  Von Brede thinks there’s something familiar about Valdemar, reminding him of someone, but he can’t seem to place his finger on who it is. 

When Valdemar receives an invitation to the Count’s mansion, he assumes it’s the business of not asking permission to set the carnival on his land, but the Count isn’t bothered by that at all, and is more interested in Valdemar’s personal history, which strikes a chord, seeing qualities in him that he likes.  This well-choreographed scene reveals the young man’s special charm, quickly realizing he’s actually his lost son, the result of a one night stand, so he sends word offering him a job working in his stables.  After some discussion with Mårtensson, he thinks this might offer him possibilities, yet when he arrives and is shown his luxurious quarters, he quickly realizes these aren’t the accommodations for a stable boy.  Trying to make up for lost time, providing access to a kind of aristocratic breeding he was denied growing up, the Count wants him to be the son he never had, the successor on his massive estate, where his presence mirrors that of Eva, both young, enterprising young people with bright futures ahead of them.  While the Count attempts to bring them both together romantically, they are both stubborn and headstrong, with Eva not afraid to speak her mind, where the pridefulness she expresses in her character is something rare onscreen, even today, as this film shows what a unique talent Ingrid Bergman was.  There’s a playfulness about their exchanges as Valdemar attempts to integrate himself into this new lifestyle, with Eva remaining emotionally aloof, but even she is affected by his personal charm, but as soon as he gets amorous, she gets cold feet, willing to accept warmth and companionship, and even love, but refuses to engage in sexual relations, finding that off limits, where her dream relationship is two separate bedrooms, always wanting to exert her independence.  It’s a strange and confusing reaction, to be sure, which may puzzle viewers even today, and initially Valdemar is willing to go along, where the luxurious comfort has its rewards, not lacking for anything, but as soon as he presses the physicality in love, Eva is immediately hurt and disgusted, losing all trust in the man.  Realizing that there is such a vast difference between the free-wheeling life he was used to and the more constrained life he is now expected to lead, this is essentially an exposé of class differences, given a melodramatic sweep at the center, reflecting the oppressive straitjacket of the aristocracy, where the two young lovers are extremely appealing, as you can sense the emotion simmering just under the surface.  It recalls the sunny sophistication of Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende) (1955), with dark undertones that keep audiences off balance, yet it’s a provocatively realistic drama where two worlds meet on a collision course with destiny, but reality kicks in with unexpected results.