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LOVERS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. Dir. Julio Medem 1998

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I should have done some research before going to see this because I thought it was going to be about lovers in the Arctic Circle. Instead of being transported to the icy wastes of an unfamiliar landscape the film is set in urban Spain, but in a very cold Spain with wind, rain and everyone in thick jumpers. Shot in near monochrome, the effect is cold and the Spartan interiors of apartments provide a bleak, comfortless setting for love to blossom.

Otto and Ana meet as children and are attracted to each other due to the nature of coincidence, and coincidence plays a large part in the narrative. The two children are engaging and there are some comic scenes between them when young and, later, as teenagers, with trysts in the night and their love kept secret.

However, once they’re older the story loses momentum and, at times becomes surreal and confusing as the viewpoint moves in and out of the two characters’ imaginations.

Otto suffers an extreme grief reaction when his mother accidentally dies but his emotional trauma, based on teenage guilt at his perceived abandonment of her, needs more explanation. Without an understanding of why he feels quite so responsible his behaviour seems unhinged. He also wishes to die and, after surviving a suicide attempt by toboggan, he abandons Ana and disappears, picking up one night stands who he takes home for sex in front of a photo of his mother smiling beside the bedside. The perfect, unchanging mother juxtaposed with tramps.

Overlong at two hours interest in and sympathy for the two characters is lost when the director drops the light comic touches, shifting to a determinedly doom laden scenario . Audience expectation being what it is, one wonders whether the coincidences are piling up so that these two finally will get back together. It’s not to be. Drab and dreadfully slow, scenes that could have been cut detract from those moments of real charm leaving it a patchy affair.
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