Ever felt that you had a perfect relationship, except that something was missing – like salt from the diet?
You may be able to see a part of yourself in the characters and relationships portrayed in Vicky Christina Barcelona.
Vicky is a normal girl leading a normal life - practical, committed and engaged with the road ahead of her fully planned out. The spontaneous and gorgeous looking Christina has every reason to be confident, but the one thing she lacks is confidence in what she wants out of life. The couple from Barcelona, Juan Antonia and María Elena, are perfect for one another but not meant for each other.
Such contradiction. But definitely what we see in our relationships.
I could identify myself most with Vicky, sometimes setting myself high moral standards, and feeling there is a ‘right’ way to lead a life. She has a reliable but boring relationship like many of my own friends. Happy? Satisfied? I do wonder if they do desire something more of life.
There is a friend who was about to get married. And I casually asked, “Are you happy?”
“Yes, I am very kan cheong and nervous! All the wedding preparations… ” She never got to answer if she’s happy or not.
Is being standard and settled that bad a thing? It’s not up to me to judge. It’s human nature to want to see what’s on the other side. While most do not cross over, some people choose to step out, hopefully not to be found out.
You can probably see the ‘Christina’s around. She’s free-spirited, hangs around happening people, doesn’t think twice to be seduced, but is just floating about. You can see the same uptight people with ‘high moral standard’s criticizing or even condemning her, when they are not much better off themselves.
Some would quickly dismiss this as that ‘threesome’ or ‘infidelity’ movie. It’s not. And as Christina said, “Why subject ourselves to labels?”
As an audience, you sit back and observe the sad stories untold in an incredible and beautiful city of Barcelona. And you start to think about yourself and people around you. Beyond all these beauty and calmness, is there something going on?
In life, you also hear of such stories but never quite understand what happened or how it happened. It doesn’t quite matter as human relationships can be very intricate and complicated.
Sometimes we go on to rely on others to fill up the empty spaces in our hearts. I walked out of the cinema, reflecting that relationships can be never be perfect, and nobody should pass you that ‘salt’ but yourself.
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