

Otto and Ana meet when they are 8 years old. Otto is sad because his father divorced his mother, while Ana is sad because her father died. Their parents start a relationship so they become stepbrother and stepsister, and are often driven to school by car. As teenagers, they secretly fall in love and Otto leaves his mother to be with Ana, her mother and father in the house. But when his mother dies, Otto becomes depressive and goes to Lapland under the Arctic Circle. Ana also accidentally goes to live there and meets him again, but gets run over by a bus and dies.
Inspired romantic elegy "Lovers of the Arctic Circle" by Julio Medem, the director of demanding 'adult romance', virtuoso blends static subtlety and extroverted scenes that grab attention. The opening act is shown from two perspectives: at first, the story shows the doubts of Otto who asks himself if Ana likes him, and then the doubts of Ana who wonders if Otto likes her. Their slow attraction that melts the barriers of their family was smoothly shown by Medem and their first sex encounter was unconventionally affirmed—Ana gives Otto a family photo on which she secretly wrote that he should be brave and enter her room during the night. He does so, by entering through the window, spots her naked, but exits out of the room again. But then he goes back inside the room, starts masturbating, but then stops and hugs her sincerely in bed: thanks to Medem's calligraphy and delicate crafting, that sequence avoided turning cheap or forced, and instead turned out honestly true. The film shows deep emotions, from the tragic ones (like in the scene where Otto finds his mother dead on the table that is surrounded by flies) up to the poetic, metaphysical ones (like the fast-forward shot in which the Sun is "traveling" through the horizon). Despite oscillation of rhythm and a few omissions, or even clumsy forcing of "destined events" (what are the chances the couple would again meet in Lapland? Why did the ending have to be tragic, just to increase drama and appear more "grown up"?), this is an extraordinary film.
Grade:+++
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