Not a badly done story of a young university student, Asia, attracted to and then running off with a Bohemian girl, Eloise, though I had a few problems with it.
First of all, I happen to be rather quick at language and have been studying Spanish assiduously for ten years. I'm already on Lesson Two, "How To Find Your Way Around The Airport." Yet, I could hardly understand a word of this really el freako dialect. Okay, okay. It was shot in Cataluna. (I don't have that little diacritical mark for the "n".) I finally figured out it was shot in Spain because they pronounce "sais" as "shay". But --"D'accord" means, "Sure"? That's FRENCH! That aside, the film kept my interest. Asia is the pale, innocent, slightly shapeless, thoughtful and ordinary young lady. She has a casual boyfriend, Nat, who is an easy-going sort of guy who gets bored at the ballet. It's hard to see why he would. The ballet is no "Swan Lake" but some challenging stuff involving gymnastics out of Pilotes taking place among half-filled bottles of Evian water. Something like that. Weird, but hardly boring.
The tickets were given to Asia by Eloise, an artist of her own age for whom Asia is modeling. Eloise is different from Asia. She's a pariah at the university. She's dark, a little feral, with large, expressive, hypnotic eyes and plump sensual lips. The other girls gossip about her, giggle, call her a lesbian.
In fact, it turns out she pretty much is. Without really setting out to do so, she begins introducing Asia to the immoral life -- drinking at a gay bar, posing nude, and the next thing they're in the sack. When Asia wakes up she feels dirty. And then Asia's uptight mother begins to sense what's going on and there is a heated confrontation. Asia backslides for a while before realizing she must follow her bliss, then she runs off with Eloise and her own mother's doubtful blessings. Unless Asia dies first and the ending is a wistful dream -- I couldn't quite make it out.
It's always interesting to watch movies made outside of the English-speaking world. They broaden the mind. Mostly they broaden it by demonstrating the many parallels between the lives of these exotics and our own. Those stupid electric alarm clocks sound as irritating in Barcelona as they do in Keokuk, Iowa -- three high-pitched urgent beeps separated by a short space. In Morse Code, they're crying S -- S -- S. Beyond that, it's sometime amazing how closely the management of conflicts resemble each other across cultures.
Asia's mother, for instance, is a snoop, like many mothers, and paws through her daughter's personal effects until she uncovers evidence of the unholy alliance. She waits up all night for Asia to return from her date. But instead of confronting her, she gives Asia an expensive present, a formal dress, which she will wear when she next goes to the ballet -- WITH NAT. It's a sensitive and unspoken way or urging her daughter to return to the comforting folds of heterosexuality.
But I do have some problems with it. They're not necessarily serious ones but they are obvious. Example: Asia gets stoned and wanders into the ladies' room. She looks into the mirror, takes out her lipstick, and draws a mustache under her nose. It's a good idea because it illustrates Asia's confusion over her gender identity. But the scene is stupidly shot by the director. He has Asia stare not at her own image but at an angle, into the camera lens, so that when the mustache is complete the underestimated viewer can grasp what's going on. That clumsy mistake lancinates much of the good will that the movie has built up.
It's only partially compensated for by some other shots. One is a lengthy shot of Asia talking to Nat on the phone. The conversation ends on an ambiguous note, after which she hangs up, takes the phone out into the hall, and calls Eloise, while the camera lingers in the first room and we can only listen to Asia and Eloise, like the eavesdroppers we are. A less imaginative director would have done the expected and simply cut to Asia in the hallway. Instead, the conversation is as hidden from us as it is from society.
I like the way women look. They're beautiful. Not moreso than men but in a different way. Even with less than perfect figures they suggest a voluptuous grace. Men, with their hairy angularity, suggest strength.
In this case, when the musculature is stripped off, when the endoskeleton is laid bare, it's familiar territory -- tentative and unfulfilled woman finds release through the realization of her own sexuality. It's like "Emmanuelle," a search for the perfect orgasm if that orgasm had emotional overtones. "The Graduate" is a more grounded example, "Belle de Jour" more sophisticated. So it's a genre movie, but as this genre goes, it's involving enough. There is, by the way, considerable nudity but only one scene that's at all explicit.
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