Your love's mother gets married to your father, she becomes your sister and you grow up together as brother and sister. What a story!!! And Julio Medem is a great director who made a very good film from this story. The movie is full of original ideas, this uncommon relationship requires an uncommon way of telling. The story builts up from mosaics so it keeps you interested in until the last minute because you have to put the pieces in order for yourself. It's a fantastic idea that we can only see the children (Otto and Ana) at the back seat of the parents' car going to school. They don't meet each other for years just at the car and they don't even talk to each other because their love is so deep and spiritual that words are unnecessary. Just secret touches, stolen moments. When the teenager Otto moves to his father's and stepmother's house because he wants to be next to Ana, they become real lovers. The first night together, when their spiritual love becomes physical, is a so gentle, innocent and discovering journey into the world of sexuality, that never been better put on screen before. The next scenes, where we can see them as secret lovers hiding from the parents are so beautiful that the last one hour, when Otto leaves Ana and works as a pilot and they don't meet for years, is one of the most sorrowful one hour in the film history. They are crossing each other's lines, but they never meet, and it causes a physical pain to the viewer. During these years they're getting to know more about themselves and their family, relationships, have some accidental meetings. Finally, years after they meet... The ending is as unusual as the whole movie, Julio Medem had enough talent to make a good ending which is the biggest risk of the movies - and he doesn't fail, leaves some doors open, because life doesn't finish, when curtain goes down. Full of surprises, one of the best film of the 90s. I highly recommend it to everyone who is tired of pink, unrealistic romantic films, and wants to see a really good, modern romantic film.
Review of Lovers of the Arctic Circle
