Arts & Events

Spanish director David Trueba's award-winning film, Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed, draws its title from the lyrics of John Lennon's "Strawberry Fields Forever." The famous song was written while Lennon was in Spain playing the role of Private Gripweed in Richard Lester's Film How I Won the War. Like any road picture, Looking Is Easy unspools a lot of scenery and a fair number of roadside characters—some are welcoming; others are overbearing bullies. All three lead actors are wonderfully naturalistic, relaxed and lovable. It's an absolute pleasure to be in their company. The landscape and scenery is as wide open and promising as the trio's expectations.  

Legend has it, that the local scenery reminded London of a Salvation Army garden in his childhood home in Liverpool—a spot called Strawberry Fields. 

Trueba's film was an Oscar contender for Best Foreign Film and has won six Goyas (the Spanish Oscar) for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actor. 

The film opens with a montage of black-and-white video interviews that serve to document John Lennon's shifting state of mind—his growing disenchantment with the Beatles and the anxiety involved in deciding what new paths his life might take. 

We are quickly introduced to three local characters whose lives are also on the tipping point of change. In each case, the word "Help" is key to the individual's unique dilemma. 

There's Antonio, a bald, middle-aged English teacher from Albacete, who tutors his young students by challenging them to recite the lyrics of Beatles' tunes. (As a bonus, he waxes on about the existential undercurrents in the lyrics to "Help.") 

Belen is a vivacious twenty-something who finds herself three months pregnant and a refugee from an over-controlling convent. 

Juanjo is a soft-spoken, artistic 16-year-old whose rebellious Beatles-like mop causes a rift with his short-tempered father, prompting the boy to leave home. 

Each of these disparate, desperate individuals are all seeking "Help" and, in the course of the journey, they manage to meet one another's needs. 

Antonio is obsessed with John Lennon. He even resembles Lennon (if you can imagine Lennon in his pudgy 40s). Antonio has even adopted Lennon's trademark circular glasses, which sit atop his long, thin, Lennon-like nose. 

When Antonio hears that the British singer has arrived in Spain to join up with a film crew to shoot a film, Antonio is determined to seek out and introduce himself. Setting out on a long weekend drive to Almeria, Antonio stops for gas and encounters Belen, who is dealing with "morning sickness" and desperately looking for a safe ride. Next he spots Juanjo, alone on the side of the road looking for a lift and resembling (as Antonio joyfully yelps) like "a Beatle!" 

All three actors (Javier Cámara, Natalia Molina and Francesc Colomer) are wonderfully naturalistic, relaxed and lovable. It's an absolute pleasure to be in their company. The landscape and scenery is as wide open and promising as the trio's expectations. The film marinates every scene in warm colors, doing full justice to the sun-swept splendor of southern Spain. 

The story is set in 1966, during the oppressive reign of the Franco dictatorship but at the brink of an era of youthful revolution that would rock the world. The date is grimly underscored when a TV set near a family dinner table broadcasts the news that two US nuclear bombs have been dropped on Palomares. (On January 16, two B-52s collided in midair, releasing two H-bombs as they fell. Fortunately, neither detonated. On fell into the ocean; the other badly contaminated a wide stretch of coastland.) 

Like any road picture, Looking Is Easy unspools a lot of scenery and a fair number of roadside characters—some are welcoming; others are overbearing bullies. 

Throughout their brief time together, the three travelers grow increasingly close to one another. Antonio, a lifelong bachelor, becomes infatuated with the young girl but is too decent to do more then ask for one quick kiss. He has a kind of innocent courage that allows him to stand up to the harassment of local thugs and even to propose marriage to Belen—albeit discretely and theoretically. 

Antonio's rickety car finally makes it to the film site (despite it's having to be pushed uphill to prevent overheating). When he is turned back by security guards, Antonio is beside himself. Why can't these people understand that he must meet with his long-haired soul-mate? 

Antonio cleverly discovers a "back door" that allows him to gain entrée to the film crew community and he is finally welcomed onto the set. He scores an appointment to meet with Lennon is his trailer but Antonio's two companions are told to stand back and wait. "Mr. Lennon is a shy man," they are told. He will only meet with Antonio, one-on-one. 

When Antonio rejoins his companions, he breathlessly recites nearly every word and gesture that he shared with the Beatle. "What did you talk about?" Belen asks. In a state of beatific ecstasy, Antonio gushes: "We talked about music. We talked about our moms." And he has something more to share—a tape recorder on which Lemon speaks briefly and sings an early version of "Strawberry Fields Forever." 

What makes this sweetly engaging, warm and wholly human film even more magical is the fact that it is based on real events. There really was a star-struck young English teacher in Albacete who made the drive to Almeria in hopes of meeting John Lennon. 

That teacher, Juan Carrón Gañán, is now 88 years old and he still cherishes the notebook that contains the multicolored scribbles Lennon jotted down so many years ago. The teacher told Lennon he had done his best to write down the lyrics as he heard them broadcast over the Radio Luxembourg, but there were some words that he just could not make out. 

Lennon carefully went over each lyric and made corrections so Antonio's students would have the right words. This difficulty of communicating across languages may have stuck with Lennon. For whatever reason, from that point on, every subsequent Beatles' album contained the lyrics of all the songs printed out in their entirety. 

Sadly, the film is not screening in the East Bay so you'll need to hop on BART to patronize the Roxie or drive your car to San Rafael. But—just like driving from Albacete to Almeria—it's worth the trip. And you might consider picking up a hitchhiker along the way. Who knows, like Antonio, you just might make a friend.