Chapter Two: Watching a movie.. [2/3]

§ Martine, the girlfriend

Martine is Xavier’s girlfriend who lives in Paris. She’s quite weird and it seems that she has many little problems. She’s really sad when Xavier leaves to Barcelona. After half a year, she goes to see him there, but the stay isn’t really satisfying for both of them. Shortly after her return in Paris, she is breaking up with Xavier, only because she wanted him to be sad. When Xavier is back in Paris, they meet the once to talk things over and decide to follow their respective directions.

§ The flatmates (Soledad, Wendy, Alessandro, Tobias, Lars, Isabelle)

All Xavier’s flatmates come from different places and countries in Europe, as indicated above. They live a (many would say typical) student life: partying, drinking, having sex and sleeping. The flat looks chaotic most of the time, but the people just enjoy their time and become good friends. All of them have a different background but adapt to the “new student culture” in Barcelona, which they all share. They help each other where ever they can (that can be best seen in the part where Wendy is sleeping with an American, while her Boyfriend just arrived in Barcelona for a surprise visit à all her flatmates go to “rescue” her), there is always a shoulder to lean on, if someone wants to talk or is sad. So they all live a similar life in their exchange year (but different from how they lived at their homecountry).

How people communicate and interact in the film?

There are shown many different ways to communicate and interact in this film. The verbal communication is quite multi-lingual – they speak mainly in English and Spanish, but also in French.

Paul Watzlawick - a German linguist - once said, that people are always communicating, either they speak or not (“You cannot not communicate”). And it is exactly the same in that film too. People always communicate in one or the other way. In one scene is the body language really important for example – when Isabelle is having her tango dancing lessons. There you can see what non-verbal communication can cause.

But except the person interaction between the people (they are eating, talking and going out together) there is a lot of intrapersonal communication from Xavier (Xavier’s voice which the viewer can here many times). Xavier is having lots of ‘silent’ soliloquies.

But there is as well some old fashioned interaction – Xavier writes long letters to his girlfriend Martine in Paris, which is more personal than the electronical way.

The exchange students have some problems at the university in the beginning, because all the lecutrers speak in Catalan, which they don’t understand. There is communication, but the problem is that the sender doesn’t speak the same language as the receveir. And as there is no similar word pool, there can’t be any understanding in this sender – receiver relationship.

Another way how the students in the flat solve some communication problems is the sign next so the phone. There is the same sentence in every language (for example for Tobias in German, Xavier in French, etc.), which says that the Person is not here at the moment, but will be back in the evening (e.g. à if someone from Germany calls for Tobias, they can say in German that he’s not here, etc.). This is a very good way to avoid communication problems.

There was another funny situation in the film when sender and receiver don’t speak the same language: Xavier’s mother called from France to speak to him. Wendy picked up the phone and as Xavier wasn’t in the flat, she told the mother in French (as written on the sign next to the phone), that Xavier isn’t here at the moment but will be back in the eveneing. Then the mother certainly thought, Wendy is able to speak French, and went on asking here questions. Among others was she asking, if Xavier is at the university (“fac” in French). Wendy was quite confused, cause the French word “fac” sounds similar to an English word which doesn’t mean the same at all… Another problem when sender and receiver do not have the same premises.

How does the film reveal cultural/social values? What values?

As in “The Spanish Apartment” all the students live in the flat come from Europe, there might not be that many differences between their social and cultural values, as if there were people from other continents living. They all speak different languages, but the film doesn’t show many cultural and social values. Remarkable was, that all the students who live in the apartment have a typical look for their country (for example Lars, the Dane, who is tall, blond and has blue eyes).

At the beginning of the film, Xavier was sad when he left France. He had problems to find a studentflat and wasn’t able to speak any Spanish. So he first moved in the flat of Jean-Michel and Anne-Sophie, which are both from France as well and with which he shares similar values. But after he found the flat, he adapted quickly to other values. His social and cultural values yielded other values for the time of his stay.

Nevertheless, there were some differences between the values of the students:

- One scene shows Wendy cleaning the flat. Alessandro, Xavier and Lars are sitting on the settee and watching MTV. None of them is helping Wendy, because the don’t mind if the flat is dirty. But a clean flat is important for Wendy, and so she’s asking them to help her clean.

- Tobias is a serious student, everything in his room is in order. William, Wendys brother is teasing him because of that, and says that this is typically for Germans. There are some differences between social values as well.

     - When Martine, Xaviers girlfried, comes to visit, she doesn’t really like Xaviers flat and his flatmates. She has other values, which are important for her. She is criticising the way Xavier lives in Barcelona, because she isn’t used to such a live.

To summarize, the film “The Spanish Apartment” indicates, that people with different cultural and social values can live together without many problems. They can learn from each others cultures and adapt to a “new” culture for the time of their stay. So, in that film isn’t really a discussion about social and cultural values and nationality, because they all in the same situation and study in a foreign country (expect
Soledad, who is Spanish).