L'Auberge Espagnole

Director: Cédric Klapisch

Starring: Romain Duris, Judith Godrèche, Audrey Tautou, Cécile De France

L’Auberge Espagnole (literally translated as ‘The Spanish Hostel’) offers the perfect insight into the typical Erasmus experience. By transporting you on a light-hearted yet colourful adventure, it exposes the love, laughter, fun and tears of spending a year abroad participating in the well-known European exchange program. It captures the bittersweet fusion of sadness over the friends and family left behind, and the excitement of discovering a new way of life in unfamiliar surroundings.

When a potential future employer informs Xavier (Romain Duris), a French Economics student, that knowledge of Spanish would increase his job prospects, he makes the decision to study in Spain for a year. Having said farewell to his family and his girlfriend Martine (Audrey Tatou), he arrives in Barcelona armed with optimism and energy, excessive luggage and a map to help find his way around this unknown city, but with no fixed place to stay.

Unexpectedly, in the midst of the beautiful city backdrop, he finds a house buzzing with fellow Erasmus students of all different nationalities, who share a common passion for making the most of their time in Barcelona. Told through eyes of Xavier, and narrated through a mixture of languages, the film documents his unique journey of self-understanding and cultural identity. The students bond over chupitos (alcohol shots), fiestas, going out, relationship trouble, amusing episodes of fridge-sharing and coping with annoying siblings. The film ultimately centres upon the celebration of diversity but more importantly, the unity of friendship regardless of where you’re from.

This is an uplifting, quirky and vibrant film providing a visual melting-pot of different cultures and languages. The film is greatly enhanced by the entertaining dialogue, playful dynamic between the characters, the refreshing soundtrack and the eccentric art direction and imaginative camera usage. Whether you have already experienced the lively and sometimes chaotic Erasmus lifestyle and want to reminisce, or are simply curious, you are about to embark on this unforgettable cultural whirlwind. L’Auberge Espagnole is ‘de puta madre’ (awesome) and a must-see film.

¡Viva Erasmus!

Céline Nadal

From director Klapisch comes a delightful continental tale that will make you laugh, cry and wish you were an Erasmus student. French Xavier, (Duris) is a 20-odd year old economist desperate for a governmental job but advised he should specialise in the Spanish economy and language in order to succeed. He therefore embarks on an Erasmus scheme to Barcelona, leaving his girlfriend (Tatou) and hippie mother behind and ending up living in an apartment with other international students. These include an English girl and her brother, Belgian Isabelle and four men from Spain, Italy, Denmark and Germany. Xavier learns the language, and a whole lot more about adultery and lesbianism – but most importantly about friendship and life experience.

The director is clearly trying to promote messages for a unified Europe, with the melting pot apartment rather obviously representing a desire for harmony. The way in which the friends learn each others languages and eventually manage to purge themselves of racism and sexism is exemplary and the theme of change is explicit throughout. This change comes no more so than in Xavier himself, migrating from a city set rather against type – Paris being unromantic and stifling – to the liberating Barcelona that is clear from the outset will invoke in him a revelation. In the end the choice for him is not where he belongs geographically, but where in his heart now he has been enlightened.

A particularly appealing aspect of L’Auberge Espanole is the way in which travel becomes life affirming for the characters, and the sense of adventure and the unknown generates envy towards Erasmus students. Such globetrotters will no doubt recognise many aspects of the film and gain a sense of nostalgia, while exciting those who still have it to come. Klapisch has here brought together a stellar cast who are all brilliant, with a fantastic script and direction. It is well worth a watch and will no doubt awaken in many a desire to leg it to the nearest airport and seek out adventure.

Jean Rostron