Series “Barcelona for Beginners”: Mindful neglected suburban idyll

The behavior of locals living in particularly popular destinations is roughly inversely proportional to the behavior of everyone who visits them. While millions of the latter are drawn to places like Amsterdam, Mallorca, Hallstatt or Venice, the residents are increasingly looking to escape.

Mariana (Aina Clotet) and Sam (Marcel Borràs) were also so annoyed by Barcelona that they fled their hopelessly overcrowded city. Albeit from rain to rain. Because the green hills above the Catalan metropolis may be miles away from the hustle and bustle below; But the couple and their two small children are not safe from the problems of civilization, even in their forest-lined detached house with a view.

It’s about the discrepancy between expectations and reality of modern ideas about the right life in the wrong one.

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While Sam’s wife manages social projects all over the world, the IT technician on sabbatical fights alone among women for the title of the most effective helicopter mom. A difficult undertaking with a baby in front of her stomach and six-year-old daughter Lia on the hand, who begins to bite her peers because she suffers from rural life like everyone else here.

No wonder that during the everyday stress test, the suburban community of convenience looks enviously at six Swedes who have moved from the promised land of legendary harmony and are role models despite themselves. At least until that fatal night when Annika’s eldest son (Liv Mjönes) throws himself out of the window in front of everyone and the cliché of Scandinavian carelessness dies with him. Because Bullerbü burns down on Spain’s coast and is definitely not Sweden, the tragicomic eight-part film was appropriately named “Esta no es Suecia” (This is not Sweden).

Why the first version of the international translation “This is not Sweden” is given the completely meaningless, even meaningless title “Barcelona for Beginners” and, to make matters worse, garnished with “Families and other catastrophes” remains one of those typically German title mysteries. Ultimately, “This is not Sweden” would more accurately express what main actress Aina Clotet is concerned with as the director of her own, autobiographical script: the discrepancy between expectations and reality of modern ideas about the right life in the wrong one.

Of course, everyone here only wants the best for their children and children: a harmonious, healthy, protected, sugar-free and danger-free upbringing for their children. However, this is exactly why they use standards that even perfect parents in ideal surroundings can only fail to meet. It’s no wonder that Mariana prefers to steal rather than buy the gummy bears that she wants to use to win Lia’s favor.

It is therefore an original and effective twist that half the neighborhood meets with a psychotherapist (Elisenda Pascual Martí) at the beginning of each episode to discuss their family problems. However, the way supposedly like-minded people debate parenting issues reveals an aggressiveness against which Lia’s baring of teeth is more visible, but not more painful.

Because Clotet unpretentiously stages this counter-togetherness with characters far removed from common ideals of beauty, she was recently named best actress at Canneseries, the series festival of the well-known film festival, after “This is not Sweden” had already won the Prix Europe as best series. The way she dissects contemporary family and gender relations is remarkable not only from an artistic but also a geographical perspective – supposedly German habits turn out to be surprisingly international.

When Mariana praises her husband in group therapy for taking twelve months of parental leave, but between the lines she accuses her of having invested a full five years beforehand, the cross-border balancing act between the traditional division of roles and their accident-free resolution becomes abundantly clear. Despite the physically painful synchronization, “Barcelona for Beginners” is reminiscent of the Cologne TNT mockumentary “Other Parents” with a hint of Caroline Link’s brilliant child psychiatry series “Safe”.

The fact that “This is not Sweden” gets a lot right may be due to the fact that even in the harsh reality, Aina Clotet and Marcel Borràs are a couple with two children. Nilo Zimmermann’s camera is definitely partly responsible for this, as it captures the inner turmoil of its subjects in an inconspicuous, wobbling manner without fidgeting. The secret star, however, is the young Violeta Sanvisens. The way she lets her Lia mutate into a kindergarten monster with a lack of mindfulness is worth tuning in alone.

Available in the ARD media library.