L'AUBERGE ESPAGNOLE

by Kevin Koehler

I have a complicated relationship with the French.

I hate their socialist politics. I hate their false sense of cultural superiority. I hate their terrible pop music. I hate that the xenophobic Le Pen and his National Front can make it to a runoff. I hate Jacques Chirac. I hate their ten percent unemployment. I hate the incessant labor strikes. I hate the absurd resistant to any free market influence on their economy. I hate the denial of their own colonial past. I hate that there is such reverence for a revolution that ends in Napoleon. I hate Airbus.

This being said, the French make great films; verily, some of the most interesting contemporary cinema is being made by French directors (Jacques Audiard, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Michel Gondry) or in the French language (Michael Haneke, the Dardenne brothers). French-born, NYU-educated Cedric Klapisch is one of these filmmakers and L'Auberge Espagnole (aka: The Spanish Apartment) is perhaps his best picture.

A brief aside: I imagine much of the world is similarly conflicted about Americans and American cinema. Even as our political leaders/foreign policy choices have provoked widespread scorn and ridicule, Hollywood films still dominate the global marketplace. People are either largely apolitical or simply can't help what they like.

Xavier (Romain Duris, one of the best young actors around; see 2005 release The Beat That My Heart Skipped) is a French economics student; in order to get a job that he needs more than wants, he must not only learn to speak Spanish, but also familiarize himself with Spanish culture and economic models. His mother, as mothers tend to be, is petty and his girlfriend, Martine (Audrey Tautou), isn't much different. "So I decided to go to Spain for a year." Xavier also tells us that as a child he dreamed of becoming a writer. "I changed. We can change, can't we?" No one was really asking, but he feels compelled to defend himself anyway. Now he dreams of an uncomplicated life. "Before there were fields, cows, chickens," he says. "I don't know why the world became such a mess." He wishes to live on a farm where people made their own clothes. Martine finds the fantasy reactionary. All the same, she's sad to see him go; his mother is sad, too, and blames her divorced husband. On the way to Spain, Xavier cries on the airplane.

In the Barcelona airport, he makes acquaintance with fellow French expat Jean-Michel, a neurologist; he's also balding and far too amiable for his own good. "You're gonna have a blast" he tells Xavier. "He was just like the jerks I always try to avoid" Xavier tells us. He's much more interested in the man's pretty young wife Anne-Sophie (Judith Godreche). Xavier ultimately lands an apartment share with an eclectic group of European multinationals, but continues to see Anne-Sophie; first as de facto tour guide and then as lover.

Xavier, per usual, learns more about himself than economics; in many ways, the picture follows per usual plot arcs in unusual ways. It's what gives L'Auberge Espagnole a peculiar authenticity, the rare film that makes you not only wish you could crawl inside it, indeed live it, but that such a thing might have been possible even for ugly Americans like me if only I'd taken my junior year abroad. The film revels in that tenuous moment of absolute freedom that exists between school and boring adulthood, wondering whether the time truly need be so fleeting. "Later, much later, back in Paris," says Xavier, "each harrowing ordeal will become an adventure. Your most horrific experiences are the stories you most love the tell." It's the enduring gift of nostalgia, where even the bad times give us something to entertain with at parties.

It would not be a stretch to also view L'Auberge Espagnole as an unsubtle bit of agitprop for the European Union and European integration, what with its spoken themes of continental commonality transcending regional differences, the efficacy (indeed desirability) of possessing duel identities, and all that nice stuff (the picture was released in Britain with the title Euro Pudding). "There's not one single valid identity," says one Ghanian-Catalonian college student, "but many varied, perfectly compatible identities. It's not contradictory to combine identities." Not unlike Babel, really, but charming, funny, and capable of promoting harmony without being so turgidly euphuistic about it.

Interesting footnote: L'Auberge Espagnole was such a hit in France that it produced a sequel, 2005's Les Poupees Russes (The Russian Dolls). Now several years later, Xavier has pursued his dream of writing, becoming a hack author of pulp romances and celebrity autobiographies. As with L'Auberge Espagnole, this picture also performed well at the box office and garnering a Cesar Award for Best Supporting Actress (Cecile De France).

© Pretentious Musings. This review may not be reprinted, in whole or in part, without the express consent of its author.