Sunday 19 October 2014

BFI Film Festival - Spanish Affair

I admit, this breaks my 'rule of three' rule, sort off. The poster ruins it but, in a way, I can still argue that this is really about 3 people, plus so many lies.



I read that this film had broke records at the box office in Spain and thought the premise sounded amusing. Most of the people going into the screening were speaking Spanish and I started to worry because, to quote Ron Burgundy, 'I don't speak Spanish'. I thought for a horrible moment there was no subtitles. I calmed down once I had reached my seat when I heard a few English voices.

From the first few lines, people (mainly the Spanish viewers) were laughing their heads off. I thought I missed something but again, more laughter. I didn't get it. It seemed that most of the jokes were very, Spanish. A little bit into the film, I understood what the jokes were but throughout the film, there were a lot of references that, I think, only a Spanish audience would know. Despite this, I still really enjoyed it and I was laughing out loud at the universal jokes.



Spanish Affair is Directed by Emilio Martínez-Lázaro, the film starts with Amaia, who has been jilted by her fiancé, Anxton, but her friends still decide to take her on her hen night. They choose a bar far outside of their home town in the Basque country and Amaia gets very drunk and argues with the barman, Rafa. But of course, they end up back at his place. In the morning he decides to follow her to win her over. Rafa ends up having to pretend to be Anxton for Amaia's father, so that he doesn't know she was jilted. What follows is classic romantic comedy, lies, pretending to be other people and of course a wedding. 



The rule of three refers to Rafa, Amaia and her father. Plus lots of lies. 

I'm not actually a fan of romantic comedies but after Obvious Child, which was one but better, I wanted to see this film. It was typical but not for me as there were, as I said, quite a few references to very Spanish things. The actors were all hilarious and the setting was beautiful and it was a laugh. I can see why it was so successful in Spain and I'm hoping that means theres a release date for the UK.