Todo sobre Barcelona: Refiguring Spanish Identities in Recent European Cinema

Abstract

This essay considers the transnational intercultural dimensions of two European co-productions set in Barcelona — Todo sobre mi madre (Pedro Almodóvar, 1999) and L'Auberge espagnole (Cédric Klapisch, 2002) — in terms of how these films reflect non-traditional notions of European, Spanish and Catalan identities. It investigates how Barcelona's African communities are represented cinematically, and how these representations challenge conventional notions of what it means to be Catalan, Spanish or European. In Todo sobre mi madre, through its themes, soundtrack and carefully composed background, Almodóvar emphasizes the multicultural fabric of contemporary Barcelona by drawing explicit attention to African Spaniards and African culture. In L'Auberge espagnole, Klapisch foregrounds within the film an explicit discussion about the linguistic and cultural underpinnings of the national, subnational and transnational identities that comprise modern-day Spain. Both films exploit the real space of Barcelona as a symbolic setting that reflects their directors' pluralist, multicultural, multipolar, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual visions of European social reality.