El Viaje de Carol

Carol, a teenager girl, whose dad is American and whose mother is from Spain, travels for the first time to Spain in 1938 with her mother. How does she fight against the conventionalisms found in this new culture? How does her American background interfere with her efforts to adapt to the new culture in Spain?



This was a very difficult film to screen without subtitles. I could tell however, that in the first scene where Tomi took Carol's hat, he thought she was weird because she dressed like a boy, also her hair is very short, where all the other little girls had long hair.



So of course I had to watch this film to get a better understanding of what I saw the first time.

The film starts with Carol and her mother Aurora on a train to Aurora's hometown in Spain. While on the train, a boy with a priest looks at Aurora in amazement that she is lighting a cigarette. When they arrive at the train station, they are met by Aurora's father Don Amallio.



While Carol, Aurora and Don are riding to Don's home on a horse buggy, three boys are in the woods shooting birds, one lands on Carol and she throws something at Tomiche. Tomiche in turn takes Carols hat and calls her a weirdo.



They go to the cemetary to visit Aurora's mother's grave. Carol asks Don why her mother and grandmother argued. He told her its hard to explain to a child, and Carol told her grandfather that in New York, grandparents told the truth. So Don told her that they argued because she married her father.

When they arrived to the house, Carol explores the house and the yard. She sees the boys outside at the river. Don gives Aurora a letter that arrived a week earlier from Robert, her husband who is in the US military. Aurora asks her father to come live with them, but he does not want to leave the spa.

They leave to go to Aurora's sisters house, but before they leave, Maruja sees Aurora and Aurora introduces her to her daughter Carol. Maruja was Aurora's teacher and best friend.

They arrive at Dolores' house. They have dinner, and then they dance. Dolores is suspicious of Aurora with her husband Adrian, who are on the balcony smoking a cigarette.

Carol is upset, and Aurora tells her that she has never lied to her about anything. If there was anything they needed to own up to, she would tell her. Carol requested to go to bed.

Aurora visits Maruja and talks to her about her relationship with Robert, and how they have drifted apart. She then tells Maruja that she is dying, and she came back home to die there.



Carols grandfather brings her a bike as a present. Carol is waiting for the boys to arrive by a field. She sees Tomi and his friends and gets up. Tomi has her hat on. He approaches her and asks "What are you looking at weirdo?" Carol replies "fairy". Carol struggles to get her hat back from Tomi, once she gets away, she kicks him in is "knackers". Carols speeds off on her bike. Maruja sees Carols all scuffed up and invites her in. Maruja fixes Carol's overalls, and then shows her the room with the worms and coccoons. That night, Carol hears someone come in, she goes downstairs and sees a man with an envelope, and Aurora give him 15 pesetas for it. It was a letter from Robert.

Carol wants to teach Chana how to read and write. She gave her a lesson on vowels. Carol goes out in the yard to see her mother sitting on the swing, Carol goes back in the house to read the letter from her father. She then reads the letter that her mother wrote her father. She goes back out to the yard, and finds her mother dead in the swing.

Carol is taken to her Aunt and Uncles house to live because they have children. Carol makes her grandfather promise that he will not tell her father that her mother has died, because he is already alone. Her grandfather told her only under one condition, that she behave for her aunt and uncle. Carol agreed.



Carol goes to the cemetary to visit her mother, to tell her not to worry, she will be alright, the war will be over soon, and she will be with her father. Tomi, Pebbles and Cagurrio are in the cemetary. Tomi talks to Carol about making amends, and tells Carol not to leave anything on the tomb stone, because someone will take it. As they were getting ready to leave, the police try to take Tomi away for killing pigeons on Adrian's land, but Carol tells them he is her friend, and he had permission from Adrian, and they let him go.

Tomi brings Maruja an apple pie, and he tries to leave, but Maruja and his mother had an agreement that she would give lessons to Tomi, so he had to stay to complete his lesson. He asks Maruja how do you tell a girl you like them, and she tells him he should tell her she is pretty.

Tomi and his gang meet up with Carol and her cousin, they go to a field where they smoke and drink. Each kids rolls down the hill, the last one to go is a "fairy". When Carol rolls down, Tomi catches her, and tells her she is pretty. Cagurrio is the last one, and Carol's little cousin starts calling him a fairy. When Carol and her cousin get home, Carol's aunt Dolores is irrate about how they look and what time they got home. Dolores tells Carol she is just like her mother and Carol tells her, "At least I am not like you!" Dolores sends the girls to their room and tells them they are not to have lunch. Carol sneaks out the window,gets on her bike and finds her grandfather. Carol wants to live with him, but he doesn't want to move back into that big house, with so many old memories. But Carol talks him into it because she is just as stubborn as her mother.

The next day, when Carol comes home, she sees "yanqui hijo de puta" (Yankee son of a bitch) on the wall of her house. She is very upset. When she tells her grandfather about it, he says that it is best not to do anything about it and pretend its not there. Carol is very unhappy with his way of thinking. She goes out to the yard and climbs in a tree. When her grandfather comes out with a letter to her dad, she stays in the tree until he walks away, then she gets down to read it. Still mad at her grandfather, she walks right past him without saying a word.

Carol goes to visit Maruja and has her write a letter to her father, without telling him the Aurora has died. At first Maruja doesn't want to write the letter, but Carol tells her that her mother would not have cared if he was not told. After the letter is written, Carol finds Tomi and he gets his smuggler friend to send the letter for Carol after Carol pays him 15 pesetas. While Tomi and Carol are walking, they hide because a car drives up. Tomi tells Carol they are going for a "walk". Carol doesn't understand, so Tomi tells her that the men go to dinner, then get really drunk, then they take a poor devil for a "walk" and kill him.



When Carol gets home, her grandfather is painting the outside of the house. Carol is very happy. The next day, a Priest and Dolores pay a visit to Don and talk about getting Carol into the Catholic church. That she will be a blacksheep if she doesn't become a Catholic. Don tells them that Carol is a Protestant, and they tell him she needs to change. Don tells them he is not going to force it on Carol, it has to be her decision. So they ask Carol if she wants to receive first communion, and Carol says of course, but under one condition. Dolores said there are no conditions in the Catholic church. Carol says "I will do it if I can wear the taylor suit." Her grandfather laughs.



Carol and Tomi are at the river, and Tomi is fishing for crawdads. Carol really starts liking Tomi and she kisses him. They go for a walk and go to a secret hiding place of Tomi's that even his buddies don't know about. Its a bell tower.



Carol is having a birthday party. She does not want to blow out the candles on the cake until her friends arrive (Tomi, Pebbles and Cagurrio). When they arrive, Carol is about to blow out the candles when a plane flies over them. It's Carol's dad. The children run out to the street, the church bells ring like there is an invasion happening, the police show up, and some federal officials. The plane flies over a couple of times. One man tries to gun the plane down, then a box is thrown out of the plane, and the officials thought it was a bomb, but it was a present to Carol. It landed in her grandfathers backyard. She opens it and its a plane and a card from her father.

Carol and others are at the church for their 1st communion. When Carol is about to receive the blessed sacrament, a man busts into the church screaming "Madrid's fallen, Long live Franco." The priest does not give her the communion, and her grandfather takes her home. Her grandfather starts ripping things up like a map, and books "La Republica" and burns them.

Carols tries to send her father another letter, but the smuggler won't do it. There just isn't anywhere to send a letter from now. Tomi walks her home. While Tomi is walking himself home, his uncle sees him, he is drunk, he tells Tomi it's time to settle a few scores.

At the train station, several service men get off the train, they all walk together, one is noticed to be walking in a different direction, and a man tells him to stop, the man turns around, its Robert, Carol's father, he starts running. The man starts shooting at him. Carol hears something, so she goes downstairs, and sees her dad. He tells her he misses her. Carol sits up and watches him sleep.



The next day, federal officials come to Don's house looking for a foreigner. When they look throughout the house, they could tell he was there, but now is gone. So they go out by the river to look for him. Carol and Tomi show up, they go inside. Chana tells Carol about the men looking for her father, and that he is hiding out by the river. Carol and Tomi go out. Tomi leaves Carol in the yard, while he goes through the woods looking for Robert. Tomi finds Robert and tries to get Robert across the river, when the man fires a single shot, Robert pulls Tomi into the river, but it's too late, the bullet hits Tomi. Robert pulls Tomi out of the water, and Carol comes running.



Carol is leaving to go back to New York with her father's grandparent. Maruja gives her Tomi's sling hot, and they drive off. Don tells Carol that her father is a POW of a great country, and he shouldn't be held for too long. While driving down the road, Pebbles and Cagurrio yell good-bye to Carol as they follow the car on their bikes, and Carol sees Tomi riding his bike with her hat on.



Carol was very free-spirited, she did things her way! I think that the way she dressed made people look at her differently. But once they got to know her, she got along with them pretty well. I think that Dolores and Aurora were like night and day, and Dolores was hoping to change Carol, but that wasn't going to happen. Carol was just like her mother. I think that Carol was able to make adjustments to her new home, but still had the American Fiestiness in her.

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