Mitten in Barcelona liegt mit engen Gassen voller dunkler Gestalten das verrufene Viertel El Raval. Wo sich früher Matrosen mit Arbeiterfamilien die kleinen Wohnungen teilten, prägen heute Migranten aus aller Welt das Bild. Tür an Tür liegen ihre Barbier- und Frisiersalons. Wer sie betritt, scheint Spanien zu verlassen und in die Schutzräume vertrauter Rituale und heimatlicher Erinnerungen einzutauchen. Sie leben von ihren Stammkunden und ihrer fast seelsorgerischen Fähigkeit, ständig über alles und nichts zu reden, während sie die Köpfe der Mühseligen und Beladenen sanft berühren und verschönern.

Der Film erzählt von vier Salons im Raval, vier kleinen, seltsamen Zeit- und Raumkapseln, von Menschen, die sich aufmachten, in der Fremde ihr Glück zu finden, während die Spanier gerade ihr eigenes krisengeschütteltes Land verlassen.

English version

The infamous El Raval quarter, with its narrow lanes full of dark figures, lies in the middle of Barcelona, in the Old Town, near the water. Where earlier, sailors shared the cheap little flats with working families, migrants from all over the world now characterise the area. In the small alleys their little barbershops lie side by side. Each nationality has its own. The businesses cater for parallel societies and have little contact with one another. Whoever enters apparently leaves Spain behind to plunge into a safe place of familiar rituals and memories of home. The barbers live from their regular customers and their almost pastoral ability to constantly talk about everything and nothing, or remain silent, whilst they softly touch and courageously beautify the heads and cheeks of the weary and burdened. The film tells of four hairdressers and their customers in El Raval, four small, strange time and space capsules, of people who left their home to find a better one, while the Spaniards are about to leave their own country themselves.
A humorous observation in Barcelona’s immigrant neighbourhood El Raval. Four barber shops, four places of remembrance, strange time and space capsules inhabited by people who left their home to find a better one, while the Spaniards are about to leave their own country themselves.