Ale (Itsaso Arana) once said by her father that couples shouldn't throw a party when they come together, but only when they separate. But actually this is only possible, Ale replies to her partner Alex (Vito Sanz), if both want the same thing in the relationship. Such a separation ceremony would then have to be as mutual as a wedding. Just the other way around. On September 22nd, the last day of summer, the two want to in the (anti) -romcom “Volveréis – an almost classic love film“So organize a large separation festival and invite your friends.
And in summer almost all films by Jonás Trueba and his film collective Los Ilusos are (unfortunately still rather unknown). The burning months in Madrid seem to be the most suitable time for the director to tell relationship stories about changes and new beginnings. The tone is preferably sunny and cheerful, but behind the supposed lightness expressly commented on the supposedly background emotions – almost like once in the films of the French master director Éric Rohmer (“Pauline on the beach”).
When Ale (Itsaso Arana) and Alex (Vito Sanz) tell their friends about the planned separation party, they initially believe in a joke.
Instead, comedies often negotiate the impossible conditions under which relationships have to prove and stabilize, “Volveréis” puts a sorry separation to the test with an effortless, almost sleepwalking joke. The hurdles, which the couple in the resolution are initially exposed to, are of different heavy ones: a live band is needed for the background music, says Alex, and wants to invite old musician friends from Granada, which he has not seen for a long time. However, these have already come a little out of the exercise and doubt whether they can occur again: “We are now rostoted than Robocop!”
Other upcoming changes are more important and more serious: Who takes over the shared apartment, who is looking for a probably smaller, new one? When visiting together with a broker, it quickly becomes clear to the two that it is difficult for freshly baked singles to get an apartment that is not too tiny, but not too expensive. And other areas of life are quickly lifted out of the fishing: Should Alex and Ale, an actor, a director, continue to work together? And how does it work if you want to meet your friends in a pub with your friends? First you, then I – like with a child in a divorce?
The pitfalls of a modern separation
The city life in Madrid therefore seems to actually favor couples from the living situation to the employment relationships and social contacts – from this thought Trueba draws the thoroughly charming and eloquent humor of his film. A society that is structured around fixed couple relationships drives those who want to separate inevitably back to each other. Even the antique dealer on the street corner does not seem to be uninvolved. From Alex to two armchairs he wants to sell, he answers what a single copy should cost, he replies that they are only together: “Nobody can separate such a couple.“This is already referring to the original Spanish title:” You will come back “,” Volveréis “is freely translated.
In its emphasized playful form, this is also a thoroughly penetrated film from the love of cinema history. Again and again Trueba lets his two performers talk about other films: Blake Edwards' supposed old men's fantasy “10”, for example, or the writings of the philosopher Stanley Cavell, who described the American comedies of the 1930s and 1940s as so-called “Comedies of Remarriage”, ie films in which strange couples are again chain find each other. This means that Trueba all too clearly lets the characters refer to his own film itself – and yet “Volveréis” does without any theory and exhibited cleverness, instead there is always an airy, relaxed summer film.
The search for the right musical accompaniment for the separation party is still on the already full program.
With her Tonmann, Ale speaks in a scene about the precisely mixed mix of the accompanying music of a scene: she should not be too penetrating in the foreground, but also not too quietly disappear in the mix. When Ale walks through the city after work, this melody puts in again, underlined a conversation with a bittersweet note in which she wants to get her brother tuned to the separation. “Volveréis-an almost classic love film” tells of finding the right tone in life, the well-designed balance between quarters and continues.
Conclusion: separations are like weddings, only the other way around. With a light, summer joke, under which the background emotions are lurking, Jonás Trueba tells of a couple who wants to separate and invites all friends to a farewell party – and thus creates one of the most beautiful and truthful relationship comedies in recent years.