DVD review - L'Auberge espagnole

From the man who brought us the movie celebrating community life in Paris, Cedric Klapisch (the movie was Chacun Cherche Son Chat), comes a movie celebrating life as a community in Europe as a whole. Despite featuring several things that could make you really hate the movie, I found L'Auberge espagnole (a.k.a The Spanish Apartment) thoroughly enjoyable.

Xavier (Romain Duris) is an econimics student from Paris, aged somewhere in his early 20s and beginning to look for his lifetime job. After an interview with a company who informs him that the Spanish economy is going to boom, he decides to go on a student exchange to Barcelona. We are introduced to his hippy mother and his clingy girlfriend (Audrey Tautou - Amelie herself!) within the first 15 minutes, and then he's off to have fun in the Spanish sun. After finding his accomodation has fallen through, he crashes with a French neurosurgeon (I can't remember the character or actor's name, sorry) and his wife, Anne-Sophie (Judith Godreche) whom he met on the plane. Eventually Xavier ends up living in an apartment with a bunch of other students from around Europe - Italy (Alessandro), Denmark (Lars), Germany (Tobias), England (William & Wendy), Spain (Soledad), Belgium (Isabelle). We follow Xavier's year in Spain, seeing his initial awkwardness with the Catalan language and people, we watch as he becomes more comfortable and accepting of the differences of the people around him, and eventually his discovery (sorta) of himself.


Is it possible to like a movie where the main character is thoroughly unlikeable? Despite my hating Xavier, I found I quite enjoyed L'Auberge espagnole. Xavier is shown at times to be whiney, hypocritical, narcissistic, prejudiced and a whole heap of other things which make him just....blerk. I mean, sure, his mum is annoying, but at 20-something years old, there's no reason to yell *Ta gueule!* to her (its like saying *shut up* but in a really offensive way). He is kind of changed by the end of the movie, though. The most offensive character is William, brother of Wendy the English student of the apartment, who despite his extensive travelling throughout Europe still sees the other occupants as national stereotypes who doesn't understand when he's being insulting (and he could be really insulting). But by the end, he does something above and beyond that shows how much he cares. Ok, its for his sister, but it was still a great thing to do.

I suppose you have to be in the right frame of mind to really enjoy it though. Some of the characters come off sometimes as stereotypes (the strange and messy italian, the neat-freak english, etc.) and it might seem like some kind of pretentious pro-European thing. However, I understand what they were getting at how immersing yourself in another country, in another culture can widen your perspective on the world and yourself. Hell, I've done it myself and believe I'm all the better for it :). In my opinion, the movie overall is quite jolly about how having a mix of people around you can enrich your environment and promote tolerance and respect for other cultures.

But I still hate Xavier.

7.5/10