He continues: "Very often being an Erasmus student in Europe is similar to what American students go through when they go off to study in a different state. But one difference is that Europe is more like the un-United States! Between the French and the Spaniards there are far more differences historically and culturally than between a Texan and a New Yorker. So becoming an Erasmus student means not only leaving behind your family and friends, but becoming an alien in a strange land, entering a different world with different customs and different habits, different ways of eating and talking and relating. It’s something that can really change your attitudes."
Of course, traveling to a new country can also bring one face-to-face with the darker realities of deeply-rooted stereotypes and prejudices, which do creep into Xavier’s apartment, especially through Wendy’s visiting British brother who manages to offend just about all of her friends with his wildly off-base biased comments. This too, came out of Klapisch’s experiences. "Wendy’s brother is the narrow-minded innocent, the guy who’s rude without realizing it, who doesn’t at first see the impact of what he is saying. We’ve all met a guy like that or been that guy," he says. "But I think it’s by traveling and opening up new horizons that we can fight that sort of stereotypical thinking."
In the end, the film became a mixture of the lived and the fictional, the real and the surreal, or as Klapisch says, "a story which lies somewhere between memory, imagination and desire."
©2003 Twentieth Century Fox, used with permission.
