Granada Nights
Popular cinema adds an old yet topical theme to a conventional but pleasing tale.
Any first feature is quite an undertaking even when, as here, the material chosen by Abid Khan for his debut is hardly ambitious in itself. Granada Nights is a simple tale of a young man - that’s 24-year-old Ben played by Antonio Aakeel - recovering from the unexpected discovery that his girlfriend, Helen (Alice Sanders), has ditched him. That this realisation occurs and plays out in Granada is something of a novelty, but even so some may feel that my rating is rather a generous one for what is such a modest work. However, that location, a relatively unfamiliar one, is attractive and on its own terms Granada Nights is appealing, albeit in a somewhat old-fashioned way.
On arrival in Granada where Helen is temporarily living, Ben quickly discovers that he had been wrong to believe that his relationship with her was secure. Unwilling to give up easily, he stays on and, although he has no friends there, he soon finds himself mixing with other youngsters who are studying in the city. Two in particular, Silvia (Laura Frederico) and Oscar (Julius Fleischanderl), take him under their wing and encourage him to party and to look to the future. Still hankering after Helen, he is not yet ready for a new attachment, but as the weeks go by these new acquaintances help him to move on.
There may not be a lot to it but the cast are pleasing, not least Antonio Aakeel who is ideal for the leading role. He gives a very creditable performance, but the real key to his success lies in the fact that far from having a film star aura he has the ability to make Ben ordinary enough in an appealing way for audiences to identify with him readily. Ben is in fact British-Pakistani as is the film's writer/director and, although the film does not make this a pivotal fact as the recent Mogul Mowgli sought to do, Granada Nights does include a telling episode in which Ben talks to a fellow Pakistani who has settled in Spain and they discuss the sense of feeling like a stranger both in their home country and in their adopted land.
However, although this issue is only touched on, it does to some extent connect with what the film is saying about the undesirability of barriers based on ethnicity and nationalism. Granada, so Spanish and yet so full of Moorish architecture, is seen as an international city and the students here come from a whole range of countries. The circumstances are such that the friendship experienced by Ben and the others in the group may not last but all will remember the pleasure of the time that they shared together. The love story provides the narrative but this theme of the natural bond between youngsters of different backgrounds is central to the film too. It carries an echo of Cédric Klapisch’s L’Auberge Espagnole (2002) released here as Pot Luck which made the same point and featured youngsters coming together in much the same way in Barcelona. However, this is a viewpoint that can’t be expressed too often and, while there is nothing new here, Granada Nights is an agreeable film. It is also one that although concerned with characters in their twenties could well appeal to older audiences.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Antonio Aakeel, Laura Frederico, Julius Fleischanderl, Tábata Cerezo, Óscar Casas, Alice Sanders, Ezra Faroque Khan, Quintessa Swindell, Isabel Guardiola, Virgile Bramly, Leticia Marín.
Dir Abid Khan, Pro Abid Khan, Screenplay Abid Khan, Ph Ossi Jalkanen, Pro Des Paula Gimenez and Adriana Hervas, Ed Fiona Brands, Music Andrea Boccadoro, Costumes Amelia Bianchi.
Granada Nights/Eyeline Films-Eyeline Films.
85 mins. UK. 2021. Rel: 28 May 2021. Cert. 15.
