Jan Krist has a gorgeous song called "Waltz with You" in which the narrator sings of circling her lover in a waltz-like fashion. A new Spanish film, Lovers of the Arctic Circle, has a similar feel to it as a man and woman spend the entire movie spinning around each other--sometimes touching, sometimes missing, but always pulled together as if, to quote Krist again, an intangible, invisible force were drawing them together.
"It's good for life to have many circles," says one of the two main characters in this new romantic drama. If nothing else, this movie has lots of circles, from the palindromic names of its two leads (Otto and Ana) to the circling aspect of the narrative (events are continually repeated throughout the film) to the circle of the title.
Otto and Ana are two children who are brought together first by chance (in a nice portrayal of childhood relationships) and then when Otto's father and Ana's mother get married. Both children feel that they are destined for each other, but for entirely different reasons.
Director and writer Julio Medem is clearly trying to portray the different perspectives of men and women. Early in the movie, Otto asks his teacher, "Do girls ask the same questions we do?" The response, "I think they ask fewer questions," brings an enormous roar from the elementary school boys who take this as further proof of their superiority. Across the courtyard, in a nice comic touch, the girls look on in disbelief.
The movie quickly focuses in on the different perspectives of Otto and Ana as their relationship develops, disintegrates and then develops again. In a device that American audiences have seen in Quentin Tarantino's films, the narrative covers the same events from two different sides (complete with intertitles to assist the audience). Whereas in Tarantino's flicks, this often seems like a formal device, here it functions as a way of revealing the differences as well as similarities in the two characters' understanding.
The movie is also obsessed with coincidences, evoking the feeling common to lovers that they are destined for each other. But unlike Krzysztof Kieslowski's movies (Double Life of Veronique, Blue and Red, among others), which are also filled with "chance" meetings and interlocking narratives, here the ever-increasing complexity of the characters' relations seems vaguely incestuous and not only because stepbrother and sister have a thing for each other.
The first half of the movie is compelling and delightful, with particularly strong performances from the child actors, who must evoke a variety of emotions. After a while, though, the layers and layers of coincidences and circles, along with a number of fairly pretentious camera effects (think classic art-house film), get to be distracting. But just when the movie's circles seem about to unravel, the movie focuses once more on its two main characters as they try to find each other one last time. This final section, which takes place in the title's Arctic Circle, sweeps the audience along in its romance of obsession and coincidence. I haven't rooted so hard for two people to find each other in a long time. I won't give away the ending, except to say that it's nicely ambiguous. Strong acting, intelligent writing and a nice romance make this Spanish import worth seeing.
J. Robert Parks
