Friday, April 6, 2018
461 - The Spanish Apartment, France/Spain, 2002. Dir. Cedric Klapisch.
l'Auberge Espagnole. Literally, "The Spanish Inn."
But there is no room in the inn.
Or in this case, there is no inn.
And there is no room in the apartment, either. They have to keep bringing in new roommates to afford the rising rent. Currently, they are at six. They are about to go to seven. It is cozy.
Xavier is French. He wins a one-year opportunity on an exchange program called ERASMUS, which takes him to Barcelona in Spain. He will be studying economics. (We just encountered a young man studying economics in Y Tu Mama Tambien.)
Xavier can speak enough Castilian to get by. Unfortunately, however, his economics professor teaches in Catalan, as Barcelona is in Catalonia, and Catalan is its language.
Xavier also has no place to stay. So it is good when he runs into a fellow French couple and can talk to them. A doctor and his wife Anne-Sophie. They offer him their couch until he can find a place. The good doctor is busy during the day, and since Xavier is around and has some free time, the doctor asks Xavier to keep Anne-Sophie company.
Then Xavier finds the apartment.
He has to interview for it.
Alessandro explain to him they like good vibes. They want to have a roommate who will fit in.
The apartment is a melting pot, a potluck, of disparate cultures. The New Europe. The beginnings of the European Union. Europudding. Everyone living there is from a different country, and they all speak a different first language. They often use English as their common language, but sometimes pairs of them can communicate in another language. They have a chart on the kitchen wall with phrases next to their corresponding national flags so that each of them can say a few things on the phone when their respective families and friends call.
Alessandro is Italian.
Lars is Danish.
Tobias is German.
Wendy is English.
Soledad is Spanish. The only native in the group.
Xaviar, our narrator, is French.
Isabelle is Belgian.
She is the seventh, who joins the group later. She understands the Castilian/Catalan challenge, as she speaks Walloon and does not understand Belgian Dutch. When she goes to Flanders, she tells them she is from France so that they will speak French to her and not try to make her speak Dutch.
Bruce, the guitar-playing friend, is American.
William, Wendy's brother is English.
Xavier has a girlfriend back home. Her name is Martine. She is played by Audrey Tatou, our friend from Amelie (2001). She looks nothing like Amelie here. Which shows the power of hair and make-up, a good eye-pop, and tight choreography of both camera and actor. If you look at more of her pictures from more of her movies, you will see that she has a wide range.
The Spanish Apartment celebrates the awkward, messy, clumsy years of young-adult college life, with the melding of roommates, changing of relationships, development of social skills, and the making of life choices.
Xavier learns and grows and becomes a different person. So do his roommates.
He experiences things he never would have had he not made the decision to study abroad. And his life is richer for it.
Even though there were hardships and heartaches along the way.
The film is light and funny and accepting of human foibles. It has two sequels, Russian Dolls (2005) and Chinese Puzzle (2013).
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