BARCELONA
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1994 Frank Maloney
BARCELONA is a film written, directed, and produced by Whit Stillman. It stars Taylor Nichols, Chris Eigeman, Tushka Bergen. Rated PG-13 for sexual references.
BARCELONA is from same auteur who also created METROPOLITAN, the 1990 art-house hit about of a group of preppies going through the Christmas deb season in New York. In fact, two of the actors from that film are in this one, Chris Eigeman and Taylor Nichols. METROPOLITAN was a satirical comedy of manners, with a gentle, forgiving nature, a cross between (as the pitch goes in THE PLAYER) THE RETURN OF THE SECAUCUS SEVEN and MY DINNER WITH ANDRE.
BARCELONA was made on a considerably larger shoestring than its predecessor ($3.2 million as compared to $300,000). Stillman's Spanish wife used her family and connections to provide assistance with the costumes, the local casting, and the flamenco sequence. His backer, Castle Rock, was owed a favor by Columbia, and so Stillman got to use the costumes from LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES for the costume party sequence. He also got Tom Cruise's naval officer's uniform from A FEW GOOD MEN for Chris Eigeman to wear, as the self-absorbed lieutenant j.g. who is the catalyst for much of the story's action. Stillman's wife also contributed dialogue, including one of the funnier jokes, where Ted's date sees him at the costume party in an old blue suit and says, "I like your outfit -- very New Wave." In short, BARCELONA looks like a more expensive film and provides us States-bound viewer with a lot of wonderful Barcelona scenery and landmarks.
As for the story, Ted (Taylor Nichols) is a sales rep in Barcelona for a U.S. company. The time is the late '70s; Franco has only recently departed the Spanish scene, the Cold War is in high gear, the long-suppressed Left as well as the Sexual Revolution have come on strong. Into this potent mix comes another innocent abroad Fred (Chris Eigeman), Ted's cousin and enemy. (When the U.S. consul tells Fred he isn't supposed to wear his uniform in Barcelona, for fear of provoking anti-American reactions, Fred says, "I thought that just applied to the Army. Good men fought and died in this uniform to free Europe from fascism ...." The consul asks, "You were ROTC, weren't you.")
Fred is, for reasons forever murky, the Navy's advance man for the arrival of the Mediterranean fleet and moves in on his cousin, over the latter's protests. (Ted, asking Fred how long he plans to stay, reminds him that fish and company stink after three days, to which Fred replies, "I think you'll find I stink on the first day.") Both men are fussy, theoretical, sexually repressed, and eccentric; neither is a very sympathetic character, at least at first, and critics have complained that there's no one to give the audience a point of view. But that is the point of Stillman's film, as well as METROPOLITAN, namely, character development. The characters are the story, and the plot is largely a device to develop the characterizations.
The two young Americans meet some local women, relationships develop along the usual one-step-forward, two-steps-back line when men and women are getting to know each other. The story and its players find a crisis when Fred, the clueless lt. j-g, is publicly accused of being a CIA agent. From this point everything and everyone take one step sideways, until the film concludes is a scene that had me and the rest of my audience roaring with laughter.
Laughing out loud is not the norm through most of the film, even though it is witty and insightful. That would be like guffawing at a NEW YORKER piece: not advised, one might miss the next precious mot. Then, too, Fred or Ted, or both, are more embarrassing than hilarious, Ted with his obsession with "selling as a culture" and that falling in love with a woman just because she's beautiful is somehow wrong and Fred with his "you can't do that, I'm an American" attitudes straddling the gap between jingoism and naivete like some Colossus of Toads.
I high recommend BARCELONA to you. I note that in the Seattle area, at least, the film has moved out from its original art-house venues to several suburban multiplexes. I take this to be a sign that the film's sly charms and virtues have some appeal to general audiences. See it, even if you have to pay full fare; it is worth it.
(By the way, Whit Stillman's next film, also from Castle Rock, will be THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO. He says, "It's set in the '70s, about three young women, recent college grads, and their first jobs as publicists, against the last days of Studio 54. So, lots of night shots. The director of photography is going to have nightmares.")
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
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