The Spanish Apartment

[acb]

On Monday night, I went to see The Spanish Apartment, a French comedy about a group of students from all over the EU sharing a flat in Barcelona (think Amélie meets He Died With A Felafel In His Hand, or something). I enjoyed it; the film managed to capture the experience of going to a new location, the initial feeling of displacement, making friends, having fun, and then the deflated feeling of returning to your everyday life at the end of it all quite well; the use of stylisation, of sped-up movement, compositing of moving video, and use of double exposure to simulate intoxication worked quite well. And the character of the English student's grossly tactless visiting brother (who couldn't seem to open his mouth without making an insensitive remark on one ethnic group or another) was an amusing comic relief.