The Lovers of the Arctic Circle Review
by "Steve Rhodes" (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)May 6th, 1999
THE LOVERS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ****
In THE LOVERS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE, a stunning picture with a plethora of magical images, the paper airplane scene is among the most memorable. 8-year-old Otto (Peru Medem) goes to the school bathroom and lets fly a squadron of paper airplanes in hopes that one of them will reach his newfound girlfriend, Ana (Sara Valiente). Ana attends a school separated from his by only a high wrought iron fence. On each plane he has written the same question about love, one so profound that those finding the planes assume that an adult must have written it. We watch their flight as they glide effortlessly through the air. We see the only one that makes it to her courtyard perfectly framed by a circle in the iron gate. After she reads its inscription, her life is forever transformed.
Thus starts a hauntingly beautiful love story that spans a lifetime. Ana, whose dad has recently died in car accident, initially sees him coming back in the body of Otto. Otto has just had his own tragedy since his parents have just separated.
Written and directed by Julio Medem, the movie is easily one of the most poetic movies in some time. The images captured by cinematographer Gonzalo Berridi are as breathtaking in the intimate moments as in the grand. One time-lapsed sequence filmed over a lake in Lapland during the time of the midnight sun will take your breath away.
Otto and Ana feel bound by many things, including the way both of their names form palindromes. They have a complicated life since Ana's mom and Otto's dad, soon fall in love and end up living together. Otto, who stays with his mom, doesn't like Ana to be called his sister, and Ana feels likewise. They just stare at each other for years with such deep intensity that it is misconstrued as dislike by their parents.
Finally, as older teenagers, Otto (Víctor Hugo Oliveira) and Ana (Kristel Díaz) began to consummate their dormant relationship. The scene in which the wall between them finally breaks is just as astonishing as the aforementioned airplane scene. Using the aphorism that silence is golden, the director stages their first liaison more with subtle images than words. As he looks on his sleeping love, Otto remains speechless and frozen. The wind rustles loudly in the trees, and lights and shadows dance on his face. This is the sort of reverential look at sexuality rarely found in American films, especially those dealing with teens.
After more tragedies and complications, the film jumps forward again to the now grown Otto (Fele Martínez) and Ana (Najwa Nimri), neither of whose life has gone as expected. What hasn't changed is that deep down their love for each other is eternal.
Ana describes her life as a "chain of coincidences." The story explores this circularity of life with some strategically placed movements forward and backward in time to illustrate the ties our past have with our present. The story is organized into many chapters, usually named either Otto or Ana. In each of these chapters we learn the story from a different perspective. The delicate beauty of the narrative is enhanced by the way the filmmaker doesn't feel the need to explain everything and leaves some key scenes purposely ambiguous.
In a film that is so much more than just the sum of its parts, its parts are pretty impressive in themselves. The casting and the acting, especially tricky with a story that spans three sets of ages, are wonderful. Alberto Iglesias's music has a haunting lyricism. And the dialog possesses a simple beauty. "I felt that something known had moved into the unknown," is how Ana describes one of her revelations.
The mesmerizing film so transfixes the audience that you feel you are engulfed in the picture. It is more than a mere movie and becomes almost a spiritual experience. Bursting with memorable images, the movie's strength can be witnessed in the perfect ways the transitions between scenes are handled. One image in flames cuts to the coolness of Otto and Ana sledding down a mountain. And as in the rest of this carefully constructed film of delicate intricacy, these two scenes have many links, only some of which are immediately apparent. A film for the mind as well as the heart, THE LOVERS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE has only one significant fault. It ends.
THE LOVERS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE runs 1:52. The film's sparse dialog is in Spanish with English subtitles. It is rated R for brief nudity, sexuality and mature themes and would be fine for teenagers.
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