Brightest Young Things

Lovers of The Arctic circle is playing as part of the Spanish Film Festival at the AFI this Saturday and we could not resist but ask William to write a preview review of it, because if anyone can persuade you to trek it out to Silver Spring on a Saturday at 1 pm for this movie, then it is him.

so, here goes....

The Cycles of Days and Seasons, an essay on Lovers of the Arctic
Circle by William Alberque

Lovers of the Arctic Circle (1998), directed by Carlos Medem, hits the
viewer like a whirlwind of breathless excitement, romance, mystery and
ultimately, pain – of life, love and loss. Writing a review of this
film is like ME reviewing YOUR Christmas the week before it happens.
I mean, I want to tell you how great your new Millennium Falcon with
light up lasers and a secret storage area to hide Han Solo and his
pirate cargo is, but then again, doesn't that take away the essential
element of surprise – the central point of the ritual?

Well, tough. Lovers of the Arctic Circle proved that Medem, director
of Tierra and La Ardilla Roja, is the successor to Krzysztof
Kieslowski in creating films of breathtaking directorial control and
emotional power. Medem's film is supremely manipulative, serenely
seductive, superbly scored and sublimely filmed – an intoxicating
lesson on the meaning of fate. Two characters, both with palindromic
names (Ana, Otto), spend the course of the movie traveling in an
enormous circle; one so large, that, like an explorer on the sea, its
nearly impossible to tell there is a curve, until just before they
fall off the edge. From Spain to Australia to Finland; from time
immemorial (well, the Spanish Civil War) to the present and back
again; the film keeps us consistently engaged in a love affair beyond
time, beyond reason, but as necessary to us as air.

We meet Otto, older, as a pilot, delivering airmail in the Arctic
Circle, before the film flashes back to the beginning of his romance
with Ana. The story switches to Ana's perspective and the still
beauty of a lake. She proceeds to tell the story again, from her
vantage point. Each informs the other, deepens the spell of the film
and our involvement in their love. Each layers the coincidences and
foreshadowing, the fate and destiny upon each other, until the ending
becomes inevitable – the camera at floor level, waiting for the body
to fall into frame. Death, unsurprisingly, informs much of the plot
–
Ana captivated by the death of her father, Otto and Ana divided by the
death of his mother, Otto's grandfather and the tragedy of Guernica,
and so it goes.

The plot leapfrogs through time, backward, forward; mysteries are
dangled before us and withdrawn, unsolved ("Life's big question,"
anyone?); and near-misses of almost-redeemed love are proffered and
lost to ill-timing. Not since Kieslowski's La Double Vie du Veronique
(well, and Trois Coleurs) have I seen a film that so skillfully played
with emotions and appallingly manipulated a plot of coincidences to
the stretching point – beyond the stretching point – all to make
us,
the viewers, utterly defenseless in the face of onrushing emotion. It
doesn't hurt that the actors and actresses are all beautiful, and the
scenery is shot in cinematography that would make Sven Nykvist blush
with envy, and the whole experience is scored with music that would
make Nina Rota sputter his cappuccino in frustration all over his
nice, new linen suit.

The ending probably will shock you. It may enrage you. If it bores
you, I recommend psychological counseling, and perhaps a heart
transplant – or, what's the word when you have a heart installed
because you don't have one – that's what you'll need. Let's put it
this way: Medem was so besieged by emotionally bereft, mournful, and
ultimately angry devotees of this film that he essentially remade it
as Sex y Lucia, but this time, without the sad ending. And if you
haven't seen that film, well, don't get me started – suffice it to
say
it is the sexiest smart film (rather than the smartest sexy film) of
the modern era. If you have, you owe yourself the opportunity to see
Lovers on the big screen, at least once, before you die. Tragically.
Alone and unloved (yes, it's that good).