Victoria L. Meyers

After seeing Woody’s ‘Vicky, Christina, Barcelona’ I woke up the next morning thinking about how it posed the question, which woman is smarter? I think that Scarlett’s ‘lost’ character is in many ways, the smartest, as she’s open to keep searching and brave to leave things behind that don’t feel one hundred per cent right. For a sense of direction, and to fit societal norms, Vicky stuck it out with her husband, even though she realised a completely new level of awareness about her own emotional needs after getting to spend time with the sensitive, but not monogamous, Spanish artist. So I guess in a way it said something about the levels of comfort different people have with accepting that grey areas take up much more of our day to day reality than the black and white, and that false props are diversions that fall eventually. Or maybe it was a portrait of Vicky seeing how her life as an art historian could expand so much more if she were willing to rebel against the confines (and in many ways the safety) of her looming marriage to an American stock broker. At the end of the film, it is evident on her face that no one really knows, but what is okay on a Spanish holiday is not the same as what is ‘OK’ in day to day life in the social circle you have in Manhattan? Penelope Cruz’s character expressed herself no matter what feeling it was, and was lucky enough that the man who loved her accepted and understood her need to do this. That is something Vicky couldn’t do in the confines of her Westernized relationship/thinking. Christina was drifting between these two understandings and wondering where she would end up … and as with everything fate decides. We thank you Woody Allen for this philosophical brilliance.