It has been months since I watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona. But it has failed to get away from me. It still leaves me in knots, cerebrating about the characters and their realities. Seriously it is not such a thought-provoking movie, as has been taken in by me. It is rather landscape-filled, laidback-storied, amorously-laced, emotionally-turbulent tale of a philander and two swooning ladies over him. But the whole idea is very alien to me, may be, the reason why I am still disturbed by the movie.
I should get to the point straightaway. I despise all the characters in the movie, just for their casual and heretic outlook to love and sex in particular, and life in general. How can true love, if that is depicted in the movie, be so loosely attached to sex? Getting laid is not a part, but the be and end of love, as shown in the movie. An old lady, Judy (Patricia Clarkson) has been married with Mark (Kevin Dunn) for last 30 years, but is still shown osculating around with a younger guy. Reason: Mark has proved to be a dunce in emotionally charged love all these years. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) has been in love with Doug (Chris Messina) for the last few years and are about to get married, but one single sexual encounter with Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) has made her question her earlier love and crave for that uninhibited fanciful love so greatly exhibited during that fling. And what to say about Cristina (Scarlet Johansson) who is not sure of her love and partners, and better say, life, and keeps offering them to everyone. Juan Antonio, for me, is the real despicable guy, treating women as bed spreads, and her wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) is a true amazon, if you know what this word means. Oh God! They are so messed up and confused. Life can’t be so byzantine, surely.
Yet, I am telling you this, I covet them all. If I have to choose a character that I resemble most, it is Doug then- a simplified, straight-going, reason-believer lad who takes life on face value. But watching the movie also made me wonder about the other side. The uninhibited love is unsure but also unbound. I have not ever delved in an uncontrolled emotional flow, so I can’t fathom what it feels to be like. Isn’t life also or only about exploration and experimentation, of love, sex, life …. What piece of monotone is a straitjacketed life then, even if intellectual, idealistic and pious! It is not an easy question to answer, and has lingered on since man discovered himself. Probably, reason wins more often, but then is also constantly taunted and questioned, intermittently, by the charms of gay abandon.
And I believe, that is what Woody Allen wanted to show, overall, more so at the end, when all the characters moved in their directions in life, as if Barcelona never happened at all. Finally the realities of life hit them, and it was back to square one. What transpired in those flirtatious weeks of Barcelona was not just an occasional holiday sojourn, but a direct Q&A of our ‘mind and heart’s’ ever dueling propensities.
A surely, between the scenes, movie. And I know I won’t be able to stop wondering about it, soon.
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