L’auberge Espangnole (The Spanish Apartment) centers around Xavier (Romain Duris) a French University graduate looking to find direction in his life. When a family friend suggests that Spain in the market to watch, Xavier says good-bye to his girlfriend Marine, (Audrey Tautau, most noted for her charming performance in Amelie) and heads to Barcelona with Erasmus, a student exchange program. In Spain, Xavier matures and learns from other Europeans about life’s complexities and possibilities.
With a depth not often seen in American movies, L’auberge Espangnole tackles themes such as community and ambition. The theme of community, both in a micro and macro level, runs throughout the movie. Xavier repeats to himself that as a boy he wished to be a writer. In the end he gets his chance to try, but must give up the security of a job. The movie asks us where are we living with our individual and collective dreams and how are they attainable. During another sequence the young foreign students ask their economics’ professor to speak to the entire class in Castilian, the dominant dialect of Spain, but the professor refuses and continues to speak in Catalonian, which is a region situated above Barcelona with its own language and traditions. That small moment suggests the problems concerning European Union integration and what it means for national and regional identities both economically and politically. Must one consume the other?
In addition to fairly sophisticated themes, L’auberge Espagnole succeeds with both character and scene development. Filmed in digital video, the viewing experience is improved. Mike Figgis, the director of “Leaving Las Vegas” explains: “Digital reads things as if they have their own light source inside them, while celluloid needs the object to reflect light.” In other words, the color representations are changed. You can see that with some of the reds in this movie. The reds appear thicker than what you see in celluloid. Also of note are several of the “cinematic sequences” which were edited in a variety of ways including sped up frames and frame within frames. Both techniques give momentum to the story line.
Overall, L’auberge Espagnole is a light movie with a useful theme, that of seizing the day,
L’auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Apartment) has a running time of 122 minutes. It is in English, French and Spanish and has subtitles.