Brief wonderful trip to Barcelona

Rating: 9/10 (25 August 2008)

Take a sojourn for a couple of hours to the romantic streets and country side of Barcelona. The beige pastel landscapes, the enchanted dreamlike streets, the surreal Gaudi monuments and amorous cafes all evoke a romantic escapade in Barcelona. Scenery and setting are an integral part of Woody's great films. As we typically see in Woody's films, like the movie Manhattan, where the sleepy streets and sites of grey, nostalgic New York take on a character of its own as the human characters discourse in front of it, we again feel his new European locale as though we are there ourselves. We are shown a lot of the defining sites of the culturally rich city.
Woody is a genius at capturing the mindset of people, of the times, especially with regards to courting etiquette and he continues to brilliantly totally possess an understanding of and be able to pierce into contemporary times. He understands and documents real human emotion and these real people draw us into his movies and this one. He does it with a literary flair and although people don't actually talk like how he portrays them, it is amusing to listen to the literary rich dialogue.
The movie resonates with Woody's philosophy and commentary with a tad of humor on his current theme of love and passion. By utilizing two contrasting personalities with contrasting view points on love and passion, woody makes an intriguing commentary on the subject. One with an indulgently bohemian outlook, boldly and constantly searches for the possibly unattainable or nearly impossible ideal which ultimately keeps her in hopeless situations and the other with a more conservative stance has more "grounded and settled" ideals and dubiously believes in the happily ever after bit. Both polar opposites are presented an amusingly similar circumstance and it is fun to see how the situation unfolds. Then Penelope Cruz's character emerges as a spicy twist to the story.
There is less humor in his later great movies than in the early ones and there is no longer any slapstick. But he still enjoys poking fun at his characters and since they are so believable he is poking fun at real people in a satirical way.
One of the most interestingly beautiful movies this year so far. And definitely one of Woody's best.