776. Spanish Affair (2014)

Starring: Clara Lago, Dani Rovira, Carmen Machi

Director: Emilio Martínez Lázaro

Running Time: 98 mins

Spanish Affair (Ocho apellidos vascos) is a Spanish film about an Andalusian man who follows a Basque woman to her home region, where he encounters various cultural differences that make his time there a whole lot crazier.

Well, I’ve seen that this film is the highest-grossing Spanish film of all time (although in Spain). I think that that contrasted with my lack of interest in this film speaks volumes, effectively showing that the majority of the comedy in this film is based around Spanish cultural in-jokes, which I just didn’t ever get, leading me to get bored and not laugh at all at this film.

So, the main thing that I have to say about this film is that it’s not for audiences who don’t know anything about Spain (like me). It’s not the fault of the writing here that this isn’t funny, but it’s that it just doesn’t translate well towards my understanding and sense of humour, so that’s why, despite the total lack of laughs from me, this gets a relatively high rating for something that I would have otherwise seen as a very poor comedy.

Actually, there is one issue with the comedy that I did understand. There’s still a lot of farce and zaniness in this film, and I didn’t even find that funny, and although that might have been down to the fact that my overall lack of laughter put me in a bit of a bad mood, I still think that more could have been done to make this a crazier film.

To be honest, it’s a tough film to judge on my part. Imagine a Spanish person attempting to watch a film about a Geordie marrying a Scouser, and their two cultures colliding with supposedly hilarious results, it just wouldn’t make any sense, so that’s basically why this film gets a 6.0.