Dear all, I watched a movie a couple of days ago.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Directed by the legendary Woody Allen, who brought to us shows such as Husbands and Wives and Match Point. It got rave reviews in Cannes, but a couple of mixed ones here and there. Woody Allen, I’m sure you realize by now, does make pretty great movies! Strange… but good all the same.
Let’s just put it simply that this show, is pretty much the anti-thesis of whatever we’ve learnt in our interpersonal relationships chapter. Ok, maybe not so drastic, but it jumps here, there, everywhere, and sometimes it’s so unconventional, there’s nothing to explain it.
So just to give a background to this film, Vicky (she’s about to be married, little bit boring) and Cristina (young, free, wild and happy) were asked by Juan Antonio (a rather hot artist) to spend the weekend with him, where the days would be filled with… debauchery. So the 2 girls accept, and off they go to Juan Antonio’s paradise island. Initially, Cristina was very willing to sleep with Juan Antonio, but a sickness allowed him to seduce Vicky instead. And by the weekend, Vicky succumbs to his charms. Feeling extremely guilty, she throws herself into her work, which inadvertently drives a wedge between the friendship between her and Cristina. Pretty… European if I may say. (Not that Europeans indulge in sex with strangers they just meet and offer them a threesome... I’m just stereotyping here. So…)
Anyway, Knapp’s model of relational development which, to quote our notes “[is] one of the most influential models of relationship”, is strangely relevant, but yet not so in this film. Woody Allen has absolutely created a film that has no intention of keeping its characters monogamous nor does it portray a future of a long term relationship. What this film does however, is emphasize on passion, lust, love (?), and sex. And all without drugs=)
Let’s see, in Knapp’s model, we have the initiating, experimenting, intensifying, integrating and bonding stages, which make up the coming together portion.
In this movie, we have the initiating between Vicky Cristina and Juan Antonio, but WAIT. So much for being cautious and safe. He just offered them his company for the weekend where he hopes to get all 3 of them together in bed. There goes the experimenting stage following that…. And the intensifying.. And the integrating… and the bonding…. And basically I’m not so sure how to classify the relationship between the 3 characters.
But hang on, in this film, the coming apart does pose even more difficult to compare. From Knapp, we have the differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding and terminating stages. In this movie, we just basically have Juan Antonio’s CRAZY ex-wife Maria Elena, (played by Penelope Cruz, who in my opinion, is nuts in the first place for dating Tom Cruise).
I think Knapp’s model just takes away the nice dreamlike quality of developing a relationship. I mean, words words words. It even reduces a nice sacred ritual of joining 2 people together to 3 simple words. “Stage 5: Bonding”. Robotic much?
But I digress again... I did have a point there but it got mixed up in the words. So anyway, Cristina and Juan Antonio end up growing close together (while Vicky goes off to get married), and they even move in together! But crazy ex-wife comes back into the picture, and though initially disliking Cristina, they end up developing a liking for each other!
And here comes the more confusing part, Maria Elena (ex-wife), and Juan Antonio is still in love, but decides that Cristina was their missing link!
SO, instead of instead of the “coming apart” stages that most people would expect when the ex wife returns, we see an even better “coming together” between all 3 characters. Still with me?
Now however, while the 3 enjoy a summer of… getting along, Cristina soon realizes that she’s bored with the relationship between them and decides to skip all coming apart stages and just leave. Of course she didn’t think that Maria Elena would go crazy again with their link gone…
Meanwhile, Vicky, getting bored with her life, decides to let herself be seduced by Juan Antonio once again. But this time, the devastated Maria Elena intrudes upon them and starts firing her gun around. Vicky takes a wild shot to her hand, and suddenly decides that gun wielding ex wives are too much as compared to a relative stranger bedding her and her best friend and his ex wife all about the same time. Strange how some people think isn’t it?
Eventually, as said in Knapp’s model under terminating, the relationship ceased to exist and the parties all move on from it. Vicky goes back to her married life (never telling her husband about the events that have transpired), and Cristina remains, free and wild. Essentially, all the characters remain the same as how they started out in the movie...
(I have this sudden urge to start singing the circle of life)
But just to perk your interest, if I haven’t already, here’s a trailer for the movie. It’s open in cinemas!
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5 comments:
Wow. One word: Confusing.
This just goes to show that Knapp’s model of relational development is just the bare basics of all relationships. Most relationships go through those stages, but in this movie, the stages are just thrown around everywhere like confetti in a party. There is no step one, step two, blah blah.
Life is definitely more unpredictable than a relationship model some guy wrote about in his room, probably alone. There really is no hard and fast rule in communication that everyone follows. I mean look, the guy just suggested having a threesome on their first meeting! Interesting. Needless to say, the girl protrayed by Penelope Cruz (Vicky, right?) was rather turned off.
Interesting. I've always had something for Woody Allen.. his shows are pretty kool. I remember watching Miranda Miranda .. not sure if that's the title, but it had 2 stories running parallel.. it starts off with a few people at dinner, discussing how a story should be told. One's a comedy, the other's a tragedy. Same plot, but a story can be told in two different ways. Like how perspectives can change how we look at things, or feel about them. He's kinda offbeat.. ha. Very interesting fellow.
Anw, maybe why this show is special, is precisely how it portrays interpersonal relations different from the usual relational progression. You're right, not everything in life (in this show at least) can be followed down to the dot to theories put out in textbooks and research papers. You'll be surprised though, how some people make a living out of breaking down abstract notions such as love into its chemistry components, literally. Helen Fisher, a reknowned anthropologist, has established herself as an authority in love, through scientific research where she has even put couples into MRI scans to see how the brain works, etc.
But yea, i do not think the reductionist approach can explain some of the most special things in human life. People will not stop looking for explanations, but i have a sneaky feeling that try as they might, at the end of the day some things would still escape their comprehension.
Ouch, you called Penelope Cruz nuts for dating Tom Cruise.. haha. Give the guy a break.. i think the people who have influenced him (Scientology worshippers) must have found a way to get to him. (Think Groupthink! Groupthink!)
Anw, back to Knapp's model. Yesh, stages can be skipped altogether, regressed to, etc. It's not the definitive guide to relationships, still it's a pretty good observation. At the end of the day, it was food for thought for me. (=
Lol. I must say I love most of Woody Allen's films but if I have to pick I would choose "Match Point" because there was a twist at the end which left the audiences went "wow".
As for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, I think the relationship linkage is pretty messy and all over the place, so for me I find it abit difficult to see the link with the model.
i love this show! But yes it's very messy! It'll most probably never happen in real life but i can only wish:)
This is one of the very confusing movie that I'd know of.
Yeah,Knapp's model doesn't really apply. It's a model after all. But nonetheless the movie also shows off one of the flaws at being human. That man is fickle and is unable to decide for the traditional method of being in a relationship would invovle only one boy and one girl. This movie tears down the sterotype.
Further more in today's complex society, relationhips doesn't have to involve specifically one boy and a girl. It could be one boy and a boy and one girl and one girl. Or if you threw all the one to one relationships out, it could be more than one to one. ( you get the drift)
Lastly, Knapp's model take time for the stages to progess. But it does not really apply in today's society where relationships come and go, skipping stages in a short span of time.
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