Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I have been visiting the Esplanade library regularly ever since I landed in Singapore some four and a half years ago. I became aware from early on that there are a number of small rooms where one can rent to view a film, but never had I ever been inside or let alone to find out it is so straightforward to gain access to such facilities. The experience of yesterday afternoon took me by surprise.

I noted from my previous visits that the above film was in the state of 'on transit', so yesterday, I tried my luck to see if it was available - only to find that it is on 'restricted viewing'. When I approached the counter as instructed, it took the librarian a little while to find it on her screen, but once she located it, she asked matter-of-factly: 'so you want to watch it now?' By way of explanation, she then added that it was not allowed to take away from the library, but I could use one of the rooms to watch it - at no cost. All she asked of me was but to fill in a form to give my contact details (she didn't bother to check my documents though), and to give her 15 minutes to track down the DVD! I was thrilled.

And so I spent the next two hours there to watch the film... not that it is two hours long, but the DVD controller is rather different and I could not work out how to skip the many trailers before the the start of the film. I was lucky that the room was not as freezing as it normally was, otherwise I could have come out with a cold.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
I first heard about it when a colleague asked whether I would like to watch it in the cinema. But by the time we worked out which time that suited us, the film was off the first round of screening in Singapore! A few minutes into the film, I was glad the the failed attempt had relieved me from a possible embarrassment of watching it with a colleague whom I barely know personally.

Sure, it had got most of the Woody Allen trademarks: middle-class well-to-do people who seem to have nothing to care about but their private thoughts and or more spiritual concerns; a voice-over that has developed the the story; an (attempted) murder of passion; endless talks; slightly nerotic people who cannot stop talking; and, of course 'not much action', as a friend puts it in her blog. But that is possibly where the similarities end. It is a very different Woody Allen film, not just that

1 it was not filmed in his beloved native city, NY
2 it did not feature the director (either in person or voice-over)

but also because...

The film is about a whole different generation, the young ones in their twenties or early thirties are now the central characters, rather than say, just a side-kick for being his girlfriend(s) or objects of desire; The story is about free love - not just embodied by nearly all Woody Allen characters, but the central subject matter of the film.

But perhaps the most distinctive differences is that it feels more like a travelogue about Spain with Cosmopilitan type of stories thrown in as an appetiser to keep audience hooked, or the other way round. There is no depth in the characters, and most of the actors, except perhaps for the two Spanish speaking ones, look just like their 'normal selves', and do not give a damn to what they are playing. They are as much as a tourist and in their character roles. What is more, perhaps this is the 'annoying bit', the 'neutral' voice-over is too eager to give out all details so that we can switch off the brains and just 'enjoy the flow'. The easy listening music that plays throughout the film enhances the effect of a travelodge, which helps to make the whole watching experience rather light-hearted, and not at all thought-provoking.

A complete change of tactic in filmmaking for Woody Allen.