This is one of my favorite Spanish movies of all time. It could take place anywhere in Spain and the location is never mentioned in the film. You have to look and listen carefully to see that it is a neighborhood in Barcelona. It's just a bunch of normal people with the usual problems most of us must face at some point in our lives.
I think the word that I am looking for is authentic, an adjective that I rarely use when describing films. One reviewer called the neighborhood "lower middle class." Not really as in Spain it's really hard to tell the difference in incomes from one neighborhood to the next. Everyone lives at a good level and the modest jobs depicted in the movie are respected positions, as they should be.
Hollywood seems to have a huge problem depicting the lives of ordinary people. They always give normal slobs jobs like lawyers or ad executives and even if the characters have real jobs they always live in swell apartments with exposed brick and high ceilings. Spanish movies portray life as it is lived by the vast majority of Spanish people. They even look like you and me instead of stars airbrushed to within an inch of their lives.
And what's wrong with just being a normal person with an average apartment? I certainly hope that there's nothing wrong with that because it describes most of us, including me. Definitely.
I think the word that I am looking for is authentic, an adjective that I rarely use when describing films. One reviewer called the neighborhood "lower middle class." Not really as in Spain it's really hard to tell the difference in incomes from one neighborhood to the next. Everyone lives at a good level and the modest jobs depicted in the movie are respected positions, as they should be.
Hollywood seems to have a huge problem depicting the lives of ordinary people. They always give normal slobs jobs like lawyers or ad executives and even if the characters have real jobs they always live in swell apartments with exposed brick and high ceilings. Spanish movies portray life as it is lived by the vast majority of Spanish people. They even look like you and me instead of stars airbrushed to within an inch of their lives.
And what's wrong with just being a normal person with an average apartment? I certainly hope that there's nothing wrong with that because it describes most of us, including me. Definitely.