The youthful and vigorous new Europe is at the heart of French filmmaker Cedric Klapisch's L'Auberge Espagnole.
This effervescent comedy, already a significant hit in France, jumps into the cultural melting pot of a Europe united by political and economic forces. With subtitles, it plays in French, English, Spanish, the regional Spanish language of Catalan and a smattering of other Euro languages.
In writer-director Klapisch's world, the result of this intoxicating melange is an amusing mess. Set in Barcelona among a group of European Union exchange students, the story chronicles the lives of a group of young men and women who are delightfully mixed up as they sort out their usual problems -- education, sex, career, sex, love, sex, food, sex, living quarters, sex -- as well as the unique new problems generated by multi-culturalism.
The title of the movie is instructive. Translated, it means "the Spanish Inn" but it is really French slang for a cultural stew where, in the words of the filmmakers, "all rules are off and anything can happen." Ignore the alternate English title, Potluck, because it's meaningless and might be confused with a new dope-themed movie of the same name.
For Canadians, the appealing L'Auberge Espagnole is even richer than it might be for Americans, given our emphasis on maintaining enthnic diversity, not sublimating it.
L'Auberge Espagnole, which was quickly written -- in 12 days! -- was inspired by the adventures of the filmmaker's sister during her studies in Barcelona through the Erasmus program (named for a 16th-century Dutch scholar and globe-trotter, Desideratus Erasmus, who wrote The Praise Of Folly). Inspired by reality, he turned her saga into fiction.
The protagonist in the film is a dour 25-year-old Frenchman (Romain Duris) who longs to be a creative writer but who is trapped in his father's dull vision for him as an economics bureaucrat. He goes to Barcelona to study eocnomics, learn Spanish and land a job with the European government.
In Barcelona, he squabbles on the phone with his Paris girlfriend (Audrey Tautou from Amelie) and falls in with a polygot group of Erasmus students sharing a large flat (a diverse Euro cast is uniformly good and often sparkles).
When our hero leaves a year later, his life has been transformed, tribal and cultural identities have been celebrated and lives enriched. We take the journey too.
Klapisch plays with cultural stereotypes, as well as assumptions about gender and sexual orientation. All the characters do or say foolish things but learn simple truths about themselves and about other cultures when things get silly.
The actual story, with its many subplots, can be easily forgotten. Yet Klapisch has imbued the film with such energy and such insight that his themes linger on the palate, like the aftertaste of a fine French or Spanish or Italian or German or whatever wine. Welcome to the new Europe.
(This film is rated 18-A)
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