watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona tonight.

 

it’s really quite good. it’s woody allen’s best film in a while. he’s reached iconic status back in the 70’s but has lost his way since, and i’m real happy to see him back in his game here. here, in this movie, he creates another confection of sexuality, seduction, and temptations of the heart, all wrapped in a lovely summer postcard from barcelona. from the first shot to the last he creates a lovely orange, warm hue that envelopes us into the armourous heart of the central characters, and the cinematography is just gorgeous, i wanted to spend a summer in barcelona after watching this movie. and this movie makes you really feel the artistic spirit, the yearning for self-expression and creation, to free oneself of the obligations and regulations of normal society and create something wild, unharnessed, sexy. the artisan lifestyle is really quite lovely and full of life. rebecca hall and scarlet johansson are terrific in their roles, both of them feel like their characters exactly. rebecca hall as a woman who’s closed in her shell of self preservation but who’s slowly starting to crack that shell, and scarlet johansson is a woman not afraid of danger or unpredictability or experimentation. well, she’s afraid alright, but that excites her. and javier bardem has some genuine rugged european charm. he has good tastes for everything – food, wine, sights, women. you believe he is a charmer who would seduce women and make them swoon. i normally hate seducers, and i did hate him at first, but how the story and his character unfolds won me over. what happened between him and rebecca hall seemed so natural, so inevitable, that i found i wanted them to end up together. reality sets in, however, and he has a lusty, steamy three-way affair with scarlet johansson and his tempestuous ex-wife, penelope cruz. rebecca hall gets married. and though they have outbreaks when their yearning hearts can’t beat another moment without acting on their lusts and passions, they all have their obligations, and they end up as they should be, but not as they really want to be. it’s kind of sad. but as penelope cruz said, love is only romantic when it is unfulfilled.

here the movie explores and tests the human capacity for love and lust. how far is too far when making a sexual proposition? how fast is too fast? what is unusual in a relationship? do you have the courage to do what your heart wants and not what is right? how yielding would you be with your lover? no, nothing spectacular happens in this film, but these questions are asked and explored delicately, sensably, in woody allen’s signature style of dialogue

here, penelope cruz gives the best performance as an actress i’ve ever seen her in. she was a little awkward acting in english in vanilla sky, but in her native tongue, penelope cruz becomes an eloquent, ardent actress who’s more expressive than any other actor in this movie. her crazy, sarcastic, spiteful, lustful portrayal of that ex-wife is tremendous. rebecca hall and scarlet johansson are beautiful women, to be sure, but penelope cruz is out of this world. the photos of her against the graffiti wall are all art gallery-worthy, with her hair swished and draping across her face and her slinky bare shoulders is just the epitome of beauty. good for her, she won an oscar for best female supporting role.