Barcelona (1994)

Director:

Whit Stillman

Writer:

Whit Stillman (writer)

Release Date:

29 July 1994 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Americans. Anti Americans. In Love

Plot:

Ted, a stuffy white guy from Illinois working in sales for the Barcelona office of a US corporation...

Plot Keywords:

US Navy | 1980s | Ménage À Trois | Reference To Dustin Hoffman | CIA

Awards:

1 win

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Taylor Nichols	...	Ted Boynton
Chris Eigeman	...	Fred Boynton
Tushka Bergen	...	Montserrat Raventos
Mira Sorvino	...	Marta Ferrer
Pep Munné	...	Ramone
Hellena Schmied	...	Greta
Núria Badia	...	Aurora Boval
Thomas Gibson	...	Dickie Taylor
Jack Gilpin	...	The Consul
Pere Ponce	...	Young doctor
Laura López	...	Nuria (Ted's assistant)
Francis Creighton	...	Frank Robinson
Edmon Roch	...	Javier
Diana Sassen	...	Woman (shootings in America)
Àngels Bassas	...	Woman (jazz)

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Australia:M | Singapore:NC-16 | Argentina:13 | Spain:7 | UK:12 | USA:PG-13 | Iceland:L

Filming Locations:

Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain

Company:

Castle Rock Entertainment

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Fred and Ted are driving through Barcelona early in the film, Ted's driving barely matches the direction the car is moving.

Quotes:

Marta: Ramon is very persuasive, and he painted a terrible picture of what it would be like for her to live the rest of her life in America, with all of its crime, consumerism, and vulgarity. All those loud, badly dressed, fat people watching their eighty channels of television and visiting shopping malls. The plastic throw-everything-away society with its notorious violence and racism. And finally, the total lack of culture.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Seinfeld: The Secretary (#6.9)" (1994)

Soundtrack:

Breakin' Up

Vastly underrated film

Barecelona is a vastly underrated movie that achieved little success outside of art-house theatres on its release. This is a shame because the movie is both intelligent, funny and has broad appeal.

It concerns the adventures of two Americans who find themselves in Barcelona in the early Eighties at the height of the cold war. Ted is an uptight and repressed businessman while Fred is his airforce cousin who's a great deal more relaxed. The film starts with Fred forcing himself on his reluctant cousin's hospitality having just arrived in Barcelona.

Yet this isn't a buddy movie. In fact, it's very hard to classify and is by no means typical of an American movie. It's far more European in style.

The movie is about clashes of cultures and it's here that the humour is generated. Fred and Ted's differing attitudes and intelligence levels rub up against each other, and the old debate about the differences between male and female outlooks get a look in too. But the largest culture clash is that of urban left-wing Northern Spain versus the naturally conservative and bullish Americanism. This sounds heavy and intellectual but it isn't - the film makes fun of the American culture of living according self-help guides, for example, but also makes fun of a Spanish journalist-cum-philosopher who turns out to be equally shallow.

The strongest elements of the movie are the script, which is as tight as any top-notch sitcom, and also the cast. There are some excellent performances all around from some very strong actors. Fans or Mira Sorvino won't get to see a great deal of her, however, as she has a relatively minor supporting role.

The film is effectively a celebration of Barcelona and also of the situations that arise when different cultures meet. This might make it hard for some Americans to warm to but, ironically, that merely underlines the movie's main theme - that the world is bigger than the American continent and infinitely wider in its cultural scope.