Barcelona

Director: Whit Stillman, Whit Stillman

1994 / 101min / 35mm

Stillman’s sophomore film, which draws upon his experiences as a sales agent in 1980s Spain, stars Taylor Nichols as a straitlaced Chicago-born businessman working abroad in the titular city, having to negotiate the impact of the late-arriving sexual revolution on the Iberian Peninsula as well as the unwelcome arrival of his loudly jingoistic Yankee naval officer cousin (Chris Eigeman) on the eve of Spain’s entry into NATO (or “OTAN”). Writer-director Stillman at his epigrammatic best, skewers both the cultural cluelessness of Americans abroad and the frequent ignorance of European anti-Americanism. Neither side comes out unscathed in this stinging comedy of manners, and nobody gets the last laugh, either—but there are plenty of laughs to go around along the way.

Director Whit Stillman in attendance for a Q&A on Sunday, September 10th, moderated by Nick Pinkerton