BARCELONA (1994) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge
Writer/Director: Walt Stillman Starring: Taylor Nichols, Christopher Eigeman, Tushka Bergen, Mira Sorvino, Pep Munne
In last year's "Swingers," the film was plotless, but dealt with a clique who were all comfortable with eachother, and ended up doing almost nothing but talk for an hour and a half. Earlier, Quentin Tarantino showed us that a film where the characters had little action, some plot, but talked a lot about internation cuisine, pop culture, and about how uncomfortable silences are annoying, and still made it more fascinating than watching some Sly Stallone incarnation try to blow up stuff and make out with Sharon Stone. "Barcelona" is part of this kind of sub-genre of films - the talking film - which is probably more entertaining and more worthwhile in the end than some other less talkative films. By the way, I'm not busting on the silent films.
The two protagonists in "Barcelona" are cousins - Ted and Fred (Taylor Nichols and Christopher Eigeman, respectively) - who are living together in Barceloa, Spain over an unsaid course of time, which apparently isn't that long. Ted's a businessman, and a very satisfied one at that, or so he says. He owns a gorgoeus flat in the city, and begins sharing it with his navy cousin, Fred, when he shows up out of the blue, gives him an impromptu phonecall, and then says he'll only be a couple of days.
The characters in this are pretty much thrust together by nepotism, rather than having anything else in common or being friends at all. In fact, they both get on eachother's nerves with their individual neuroses. Ted is kind of soft-spoken, and doesn't have much to say, other than to seemingly repeat numerous books to make him sound very intellectual. Fred's more easy-going and sometimes babbles on bizarre subjects in awkward places.
They also, of course, pursue spanish women, one of them being Mira Sorvino in one of her earlier roles (also equipped with a very authentic, and extremely sexy spanish accent), who was a brunette at the time. The women are not really given much to do. Sometimes they seem rather shallow. The one who both of them really like, Moserrat (Tushka Bergen), has very little to say. However, the guys in this film pursue these women because they are part of the Trade Fair, which means they travel and whatnot, and they might be very culturally interesting. And of course, they probably speak English. But when they try to talk to them about this, they seem rather dazed and confused, and really don't care that much.
Other than talkng about sex and relationships throughout the film, there's also a political side to this. This takes place in the early 80s (the subtitle at the beginning says "the last decade of the Cold War"), and there's a lot of American hostility. And, of course, Fred is very proud of his country, and feels he has to wear his navy suit almost everywhere. He's easily offended when people start calling him a "fascist," and even gets in some heated arguments with the ultimate lady's man (Pep Munne) about some American consulat bombings in the city.
What's interesting about "Barcelona" is how we get to see a group of people we usually don't see in cinema. Instead of the liberal, artistic, neurotics of Woody Allen's films, we get conservative, white-collar types who are still neurotic. Instead of whining, they seem to display their inner problems in a more monotonous way, and it still comes across as funny and amusing. And the script and acting is excellent, supplying the little-known actors with some truly interesting and some very classic dialogue.
"Barcelona" runs a tad over the Woody Allen average (which is about 93 minutes or so) and goes by smoothly, as it pulls you into its interesting characters. I'm much more interested in seeing characters speak their minds than watch them just shoot their way out of situations, so I'm always happy to see a film that embraces the former, and in such a cool way.
MY RATING (out of 4): ***1/2
Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/
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