July 29, 1994
BARCELONA is the second movie (and first studio movie) by writer/director Whit Stillman, following up on his Oscar nominated low budget debut, METROPOLITAN (1990). I love his 1998 film THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, which is considered part of a loose trilogy with these two (and has some overlapping characters), but if I ever saw these other two it was a long time ago and I don’t really remember them. So I guess I’m going in backwards order.
Stillman is one of those true originals, he has his own thing that he does really well and nobody else is much like him. His movies are very light on plot, very heavy on dialogue, and almost entirely about self absorbed, Ivy League educated yuppie dorks, and yet I find the experience light and funny and not grating. This is in part because he also has a very distinct humor and tone and somehow gets these finely tuned performances that deliver it just right. One of his secret weapons is Chris Eigeman (unaired Red Dwarf USA pilot), who plays different characters in all of them, always with the absolute perfect wide-eyed sense of outrage at the stupidest shit. In LAST DAYS OF DISCO I highlighted when he got upset about someone’s interpretation of LADY AND THE TRAMP – in this one my favorite is when he sees anti-American graffiti and says “They’re calling us pigs. That’s meant to hurt!” (read the rest of this shit…)
