The Downtown Mall. Stonefield. Newcomb Hall. For many students, these are the only spots that come to mind when they think of catching a movie in Charlottesville. One of the lesser-known venues, however, is the French House — or as the residents call it, La Maison Française — where students can view films that fall outside the realm of predictable, over-produced blockbusters. On certain week nights, the French House hosts the Ciné-Club, which screens French films for free. These gatherings are open to everyone, and yes, they do feature English subtitles.
This past week, the Ciné-Club highlighted the refreshingly original “L’Auberge Espagnole,” or “The Spanish Apartment,” which tells the story of a young man who moves to Barcelona for a year and lives in an apartment with six other people, all of different nationalities.
The French are known for their not-so-happily ever afters, and admittedly, when I think of French films I tend to picture a black-and-white movie that is incomprehensible and utterly depressing. But “The Spanish Apartment” completely defied these initial expectations.
“The Spanish Apartment” does have its fair share of bizarre moments, but the strangeness of some scenes is overlooked in the midst of the heart-warming relationships at the film’s core.
Watching the ways in which the characters, all from different cultures and backgrounds, interact with one another is captivating. In order to communicate, they use a mix of French, English and Spanish — they even have a list of greetings in each of their native languages by the telephone so that whoever picks up the phone can be understood by the person on the other end.
There are plenty of screaming matches, but through these disagreements and their resolutions the movie depicts true friendship, not the polished, glossed-over version that big-budget Hollywood movies display. There are fights, tears, breakups and makeups that seem disorienting at times, but it’s the confusion and rapid-fire changes in emotion that make the movie so believable.
In one of the film’s more poignant moments, a brother and sister yell at each other and storm out of a room. The scene then immediately cuts to them in the same room hugging and crying, apologizing through tears. As anyone with a sibling can attest, this is more often than not the case when it comes to familial bonds.
For such a powerful film, “The Spanish Apartment” actually offers plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, too. Unlike the gloom-fest I was expecting, the movie incorporates hilariously awkward scenes to keep the audience entertained without detracting from its heavier themes. After all, life is neither a dark drama nor a non-stop comedy, but a healthy mix of both.
Hollywood studios are often so focused on creating a feel-good blockbuster that they forget to make life believable — actors look like they just stepped off a runway, characters who are trying to make ends meet inexplicably occupy giant city apartments, and in the end the guy almost always gets the girl. If this film is any indication, French filmmakers seem much more willing to reject this formulaic approach in order to capture uncomfortable realities.
In “The Spanish Apartment,” the characters are flawed and often unlikable, the apartment they live in is cramped and dirty, and their romantic relationships are a tangled mess. The goal of the film is to depict real life, and through its twists, awkward moments and strong friendships, it does just that.
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