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You are here: Home Leisure Arts & Culture Barcelona is Woody Allen's European dream

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29/05/2008Barcelona is Woody Allen's European dream

Barcelona is Woody Allen's European dream The US director says the city with its food, beach, architecture and colours is a character itself in his latest movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

29 May 2008

CANNES / MADRID - "It's about a group of highly neurotic characters that interact in ways that I'm hoping you'll think is funny," says Woody Allen. "When it's over you may or may not. If you don't then I will have failed, but I'm giving it my best shot."

According to the critical reaction to Allen's new film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the 73-year-old director has achieved that goal. The movie, shot in Barcelona last summer and starring Scarlett Johansen, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, reportedly hits the mark on the comedy front.

But, perhaps even more importantly, it is a vast improvement on his last three films, Match Point, Scoop and the disappointing Cassandra's Dream.

The movie was screened out of competition last week at the Cannes Film Festival, and was warmly received by most critics. The plot follows two American tourists, played by Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson, who are seduced by Javier Bardem - who himself is unable to forget about his ex. That part goes to Spanish siren Penélope Cruz, who became Bardem's off-screen girlfriend after romance blossomed between the two during the shoot.

Speaking at a press conference in Cannes, Allen explained the reasoning behind filming away from his beloved New York City.

Golden opportunity
"People from Barcelona called and said if I was interested in making a film there, they would finance it, so I said, sure," he said. "If someone had called me from Rome or Venice or Stockholm or God knows where, I probably would have agreed to it just as readily. But this was a golden opportunity for me, because I happen to have a particular fondness for a number of cities in Spain, and Barcelona is certainly one of my favourites."

The director of Manhattan and Annie Hall also played down reports that he'd said he wouldn't come back to the city to film.

"It's not true that I felt under pressure during the shoot: shooting in New York is a lot more complicated. It's true that a lot of people turned out to watch, but every time you asked them to be quiet, they were. That's unthinkable in New York.

“Barcelona is a much more peaceful and silent city. What's more, the temperature was fabulous, much cooler than Manhattan in the summer."

For Allen, Barcelona was a character itself in the movie, with its "food, beach, colours, architecture and flowers." For the director, Vicky Cristina Barcelona reminds him of the European films from the 1950s and 1960s that he loves so much.

Although he filmed Match Point, Scoop and Cassandra's Dream in the United Kingdom, he doesn't consider them to be European. "Come on, England isn't European - Spain is."

text by Elsa Fernandez-Santos / S.H. / Expatica
photos by Flickr contributors Wolfgang Staudt, gabo2, Jaume Meneses and google.


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