Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Note Générale:

7,4/10   

Réalisateur:

Woody Allen

Scénariste (WGA):

Woody Allen (written by)

Date de sortie:

15 août 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Drame | Romance

Accroche:

Life is the ultimate work of art

Intrigue:

Two girlfriends on a summer holiday in Spain become enamored with the same painter, unaware that his ex-wife, with whom he has a tempestuous relationship, is about to re-enter the picture.

Plot Keywords:

Summer | Painter | Artist | Ex Wife | Marriage

Récompenses:

Won Oscar. Another 19 wins & 27 nominations

Avis des utilisateurs:

Overly Intellectualized, Forced Drama

Ensemble

Rebecca Hall	...	Vicky
Scarlett Johansson	...	Cristina
Javier Bardem	...	Juan Antonio Gonzalo
Penélope Cruz	...	Maria Elena
Christopher Evan Welch	...	Narrator (voice)
Chris Messina	...	Doug
Patricia Clarkson	...	Judy Nash
Kevin Dunn	...	Mark Nash
Julio Perillán	...	Charles
Juan Quesada	...	Guitarist in Barcelona
Richard Salom	...	Art Gallery Guest #1
Manel Barceló	...	Doctor
Josep Maria Domènech	...	Julio Josep
Emilio de Benito	...	Guitarist in Asturias
Maurice Sonnenberg	...	Art Gallery Guest #2

Autre(s) titre(s):

Midnight in Barcelona (Spain) (working title)
Woody Allen Spanish Project (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexuality, and smoking.

Durée:

96 min

Pays:

Spain | USA

Langue:

Anglais | Catalan | Espagnol

Couleur:

Couleur

Rapport de forme:

1,85 : 1

Son:

Dolby Digital (Mono)

Classification:

USA:PG-13 (certificate #44252) | Finland:K-11 | Singapore:M18 | Spain:13 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Sweden:7 | Australia:M | Hong Kong:IIB | Brazil:12 | Ireland:15A | New Zealand:M | South Africa:13LS | UK:12A | Portugal:M/12 (Qualidade) | Netherlands:6 | Philippines:R-13 (MTRCB) | Argentina:16 | South Korea:15 | Iceland:L | Peru:14

Lieux de tournage:

Avilés, Asturias, Spain

Société:

Mediapro

Anecdotes:

"Vicky Cristina Barcelona" was based on a screenplay Woody Allen originally wrote years earlier, which was set in San Francisco. Since his deal for this film specified that it must be shot in Spain, Allen looked for a story from his files that could be rewritten for a Spanish setting, took his old San Francisco-set script and rewrote it to take place in Barcelona.

Goofs:

Considéré à tort comme goofs: Christina gets sick when they are at Oviedo for the week-end. The doctor goes to her hotel room and advices her to rest and tells that she became sick because of her ulcer. In another scene, someone asks for a painkiller and she takes aspirin from her purse, despite the fact that aspirin worsens ulcers. However, she could merely carry aspirin in the event family/friends need it, which is what happens during the movie.

Guillemet:

[first lines]
Narrator: Vicky and Cristina decided to spend the summer in Barcelona. Vicky was completing her master's in Catalan Identity, which she had become interested in through her great affection for the architecture of Gaudí. Cristina, who spent the last six months writing...
[...]

Connexions:

figure dans "Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: (2008-08-09)" (2008)

Bande son:

Asturias

Overly Intellectualized, Forced Drama

Vicky Christina Barcelona The title of the movie refers to the names of two young women, Vicky and Christina who visit Barcelona Spain and encounter an attractive, brash, seductive, and articulate Spanish man who raises doubts and well as insights in these women. Unfortunately the movie is severely hampered by a distracting, unnecessary voice over, opens earlier with a nice but repetitious musical rendition, and the overly incessant voice of Woody Allen who wrote and directed the movie. It is almost inescapable from experiencing the women artificially parroting Mr. Allen's unique way of thinking and talking which only adds to the awkwardness of the movie.

The voice-over is so basically repetitious explaining most of the particulars of what is going on in the movie that it interferes with the acting and expressive ability to allow the performers from telling the story. The movie experience is like having to sit through to separate and parallel portrayal of the same events. The voice-over only serves to either implicitly send out the message that the audience is either too dumb to understand what's going on or the actors are so bad that they can't perform sufficient to relay the story by themselves. A good example is the severe but perhaps unjustified criticism of the voice-over narrative (relatively scarce actually) in Blade Runner (1982) which in that movie provided additional mental thoughts of Harrison Ford that added substance to the movie instead of just supplanted or stated the obvious as in this movie.

And why the use of the flashback to reveal an additional relational subplot? To its credit, Vicky Christina Barcelona eventually evolves into a more in-depth and meaningful look at the consequences, complications of relationships often overlooked or skimmed over in other dramatic or romantic comedies. However, this relational "situational" marriage theme was also explored with the release the same year (2008) of "Revolutionary Road" with as much or more intensity or cinematic impact dealing with a 1950s period piece starring Leo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet who are provided with a script that allows them freedom to act the roles and lives they are portraying instead of Allen's intellectualizing musing of these deep relational uneasy themes.

The last part of the movie is cinematically different from the rest of the movie, more hurried, more explanatory, more quickly edited - sort like pushing out a work in progress. By the end, this rather long slice of life piece ends up dissatisfying unable to quench the thirst of an experiential series of events, and neither do the characters in the movie.

6/10