Arrive on DVD & Blu-ray
1/27/09
Recent winner of the Golden Globe for Best Picture Musical or Comedy, Vicky Cristina Barcelona-- one of two superior films from Woody Allen released in 2008 following Ewan McGreggor and Colin Farrell's turn in the dark Cassandra's Dream-- is set for release on DVD on January 27, 2009.
Debuting on both DVD and Blu-ray in time for both Oscar consideration along with giving the chance for my fellow Independent Spirit Award voters (remember to cast your ballot soon!) a reminder of its lovely brilliance and understated charm, recently The Weinstein Company and Genius Products were kind enough to send me an advance copy of the DVD for review.
In taking in the feature for the third time-- being so charmed by it during my first viewing in a small press screening early in the morning that I feared I'd taken so many notes, I needed to go again to watch it with an audience, this time around I found myself even more captivated by its sophistication. And granted, as a huge Allen devotee, I must admit to being disappointed by the lack of extra features, having experienced countless other films of the writer/director's on DVD with similar sparse presentations, lessened the blow considerably.
While it's no doubt the type of film that will make one want to travel not only to Barcelona but especially Oviedo which our seductive lead Juan Carlos (Javier Bardem) whisks both Vicky and Cristina (Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson, respectively) early on in the ninety-seven minute delightful romp, I'm thrilled to announce that as someone who's recently been spoiled by Blu-ray riches in evaluating the quality of picture and sound, the DVD transfer for this film is one of the best for a standard disc that I've seen since Focus Features' release of Burn After Reading.
Like Burn-- incidentally, a fellow Globe nominee for Best Picture Comedy-- after a few moments, I nearly mistook the DVD for Blu-ray quality although granted I was viewing the film in my player with the up-conversion making it seem as though the Spanish countryside had invaded my living room.
While the film should definitely garner some Oscar attention and the terrifically funny Penelope Cruz gives her best performance since Volver and has won an amazing number of accolades for her turn (including recognition from the National Board of Review), this time around, I was especially captivated by Rebecca Hall.
In a layered and subtly nuanced portrayal, she manages to convey several conflicting thoughts despite her deft Allen dialogue in two key scenes including the first when Juan Carlos (wearing a bullfighter like red shirt) makes his "indecent proposal" and the second when he toys with her when the two dine alone later before an evening of Spanish guitar and impulsive lovemaking.
While the ensemble is perfectly in tune with their roles as obviously some parts (including Johansson's, of course) were written expressly for the actors, this time around it was Hall that I felt was most deserving of a second look and hopefully Oscar will take note, this year possibly breaking free from their tradition of avoiding comedies like the plague to see the human comedy and wit evidenced in every frame of this-- one of my very favorite films of last year.
One of the most annoying things about being a writer is that I’m best able to process things with my pen or at my keyboard when I’ve had a moment to let things sink in. I’m a big believer in note-taking, especially in film criticism because automatic writing allows some pools of unrealized creativity to eke out. Sometimes I discover things of which I’d been previously unaware until I read back the barely legible sentence fragments I’d scribbled out on a tiny notebook in a darkened theatre. Yet, as a writer first and foremost, I have a harder time with extemporaneous speaking.
The wonderful PR agencies and studio representatives who are kind and courageous enough to screen their films for us wait expectantly with notebooks in their own hands in well-lit lobbies, hoping to get our immediate reactions. Often I struggle to come up with something that’s not only intelligent but balanced. If I hate a film, as a polite Midwesterner (or it could be just feminine instinct), I always find that I want to find something — anything — to say about it that’s positive before I apologetically express my dislike.
Yet, intriguingly, when I’m blown away by a film, often I’m nearly equally at a loss for words. Case in point: Vicky Cristina Barcelona. On the surface, it begins as a typical Woody Allen film with a European feel including a voice-over narration which in this case works well since the setting is Barcelona as we follow two American female tourists on summer holiday. Predictably, issues of love, sex, infidelity, and artistic temperament come into play, per Allen’s most frequently visited themes.
Yet, as a huge Allen fan who’s seen every one of his films (including some I can practically recite from memory), I couldn’t get over the feeling that had I walked into the theatre after his traditional black and white credits had rolled. Just five minutes late and with no prior knowledge of the piece, I wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that it was a film made by Woody Allen.
And admittedly some of his works — even the light, entertaining trifles of the past few years — have felt self-conscious and claustrophobic, which make his epic tragedies like Match Point and Cassandra’s Dream far greater by comparison. However, I'm thrilled to write that Vicky Cristina Barcelona is breezy, earthy, intoxicating, and frankly, sexy as hell.
Sex has always been Allen’s topic de jour, but whereas it’s been so cerebral in his other films, discussed to death so that it’s nearly clinical (for example, Annie Hall), this film celebrates love, sexuality, and humanity in a life-affirming and dare I say optimistic approach, atypical of the notoriously pessimistic, introspective Allen.
Why so sexy, you may ask? Well, surely the country’s setting helps, photographed to breathtaking effect by award-winning Spanish cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (Talk to Her, The Sea Inside, The Others) as does the beauty of the film’s leads including Johansson and Cruz, but mostly, the sex appeal is best personified in the unexpected, pitch-perfect, dreamy performance by Javier Bardem.
Bardem, best known to audiences for his Oscar winning turn playing the “bubonic plague”-likened killer in the most recent Best Picture winner, No Country for Old Men, continues to amaze, showing colors to his personality we never knew existed such as warm humor and irresistible mischief, and Barcelona makes terrific use of his range from the start.
They both get much more than they bargained for when, staying with family friends (Patricia Clarkson and Kevin Dunn), Cristina catches sight of the smolderingly mysterious presence of Bardem’s Juan Antonio, an artist still reeling from a bad breakup with his ex Maria Elena (Cruz) who tried to murder him before they parted. Whereas most women would run screaming in the other direction upon hearing tales of domestic violence, Cristina becomes all the more intrigued, later using her feminine wiles to attract his attention at a nearby bar. A few hair tricks and eyelash bats later, Juan Antonio is soon at their table, first asking if the two women are American before fixating on Cristina with the painterly come-on, “What color are your eyes?”
Although given the gorgeous leads and locales, all audiences are sure to find themselves taken in by the film’s sex appeal, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is an entirely welcome summer inclusion for sophisticated, thinking women after several months of fun yet admittedly testosterone-fueled juvenile buddy comedies and CGI-driven superhero pictures.
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