Vicky Cristina Barcelona [Blu-ray] [Region B]

Good quality product

The city of Barcelona affects you.In this great Woody Allen -film you get to see Barcelona with the eyes of the tourist. It is a city where the senses are stirred, and awakened.Vicky and Cristina are two young students, who have very different attitudes to studying.One studies something really obscure, but planned in detail, just as her life is planned.The Other is ( romantically ) un-planned. She is easily distracted, and her love life, too, is quite un-planned, and full of distractions.Both are, like students mostly are, experiencing their own 'Education Sentimentale'.This education of feelings is speeded up by staying in Barcelona, and by the sensuous affair they both have with one and the same man( javier Bardem ).The end result of their emotional earthquake is that the calculating, strategically gifted Vicky, gets more self-knowledge, while the romanticallyinclined Cristina seems not to get to know herself better. She will probably go on repeating her passionate relations, until she eventually may have learned her lessons in life - or not.Both types of women, the calculating, and the romantic, can be found in earlier Woody Allen films.In 'Vicky-Cristina-Barcelona' there is no prejudice, kindness and wisdom rule here.Bodil Marie - Revisiting Romanticism.

nice chick flick

"Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is an immensely enjoyable romantic film about relationships, directed by Woody Allen and set in Barcelona.There is a great cast of actors in the film; three beautiful women, Rebecca Hall,Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz and a charismatic leading man, Javier Bardem who plays a bohemian, abstract artist. The film is about a summer of love experienced by two American tourists,Hall and Johansson, who both succumb to Bardem's seduction. One of them,Johansson, goes on to co-habit with the artist for a while,becoming involved in a menage a trois with him and his volatile,suicidal ex-wife, played by Cruz. The other more sensible girl,Hall, marries her fiancee in Spain, but her passionate fling with Bardem haunts her throughout the film."Vicky Cristina Barcelona" is a charming, quirky film , brilliantly acted and full of characters the viewer can empathise with and like. The only criticism I would make is that the ending to the film was a bit flat and abrupt , but I'll not let that stop me from giving it 5 stars.2009 is really looking a promising year for films with "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" being one of the best to date.

Well directed, scripted and acted, I nonetheless found this film frustrating; nearly pointless, close to meaningless. But then that might have been the point? Allen highlights his common existential theme by having a character say two or three times that life has no overarching meaning, only experience; so meaning has to be found in experience. This film is slice of life in which little is learned by Vicky & Christina and no meaning is found.An Epic is a story in which characters undertake a journey and are changed by their experiences. This is an anti-epic: the lead characters go through powerful experiences and don't change.Vicky starts off having decided she wants a conventional life, and has a well looking, well off, successful fiance lined up who is keen to marry her and set out on such a life; though she clearly has some nagging doubts she's not admitting to herself or anyone else. Her experiences in 'Barcelona' show her that she is likely to find the reality of this marriage/life dull and unfulfilling. The result, with even larger nagging doubts she chooses the marriage anyway.Christina is a drifter (well enough off to do this - actually, none of the characters have any money worries at all) who doesn't know what she wants, but knows when she doesn't want something. She has the experience of being in a vital relationship with new friends and lovers, in a beautiful house/environment, encouraged to develop her talent as a creative photographer, with access to every luxury. A sort of 'once in a lifetime near fantasy opportunity'. At the end she decides this something else she doesn't want and decides to carry on drifting - guess she has a private income allowing her to indulge herself however she wishes.In the end, I had no patience with either of them: spoilt brats both; one with no courage, the other with no direction.The Spanish characters, if sometimes anarchic, DO have life and energy; V & C should have learned something from them; the Spaniards had nothing to learn from V & C.Again, maybe this was supposed to be just a slice of (ultimately pointless) experience?Finally, this is just my opinion: it's an admired film, loved by many, and it's certainly very well made.

Woody Allen has made some disappointing movies in the autumn of his career but Vicky Cristina Barcelona is not just a return to form, to me it is a really mature work which outshines all his early stuff with the possible exception of Manhattan.A perfect ensemble piece with note perfect performances from all concerned - Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Penelope Cruz and a particularly charismatic Javier Bardem who is clearly a really fine actor. (Contrast his charming animal magnetism in this movie with the eerily impassive psychopath Anton Chigurh in 'No Country for Old Men.')The silent star of this movie of course is Barcelona, ravishingly photographed in luminous sunlight. The flamenco guitars on the soundtrack complement the atmosphere perfectly.The narrative is deftly handled with no pat conclusions and just leaves you feeling the better for having spent some time with real people (albeit, in the case of Bardem and Cruz, people who are clearly very unusual.)Watching this movie is like sitting in a European cafe on a sunny day watching fascinating events unfold between really interesting people. A small masterpiece.

One for the ladies!Javier Bardem at his sexiest best.Interesting dynamics between the best friends, and a great overall plot.