Strong-willed, tomboyish Ana and dreamy Otto meet by chance as school children; their destinies becomes entangled when Ana`s mother falls in love with Otto`s father. Their close, almost sibling, relationship blossoms into illict love during their teenage years, but, as adults, events part them - yet their love endures despite a lengthy separation. Spanish director Julio Medem is one of the most interesting directors working in a country where the cinema is exceptionally vital at present. His films, Cows, The Red Squirrel and Earth, are modern melodramas, love stories which hinge on chance meetings, tragic accidents, separations. The Lovers of the Arctic Circle is his most ambitious film, and its tale of lovers separated by vast distances reminded me of Vincent Ward`s Map Of The Human Heart. There are truly magical moments here: a sequence set in Madrid square is itself a small classic of romantic cinema. Unfortunately, the actors who play the lovers as adults, Najwa Nimri as Ana and Fele Martinez as Otto, aren`t as charismatic as they might have been, and Medem seems to pull his punches in the crucial second half of the film - it really needed to be more melodramatic, more florid. The first half is more successful, but this is still a most attractive and intelligent film.Margaret`s comments:This film makes no attempt to create a reality. It has a romantic and artistic agenda to push and it achieves both rather obviously. The artificiality of the various premises in this film reaches its irritating denouement in the final scenes. As a sweeping romantic saga Lovers of the Arctic Circle distances us from its protagonists, they are too obviously puppets in the hands of a visually audacious filmmaker. It`s hard to be concerned with their fate at such a distance. A pretentious and disappointing film from Julio Medem.
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