Lovers of the Arctic Circle movie review (1999)
"Lovers of the Arctic Circle" tells the story of Ana and Otto, whose names are palindromes, and whose lives seemed governed by circular patterns. Events at the beginning are related to events at the end. The movie is about love--or, rather, about their grand ideas of romance. It is comforting to think that we can love so powerfully that fate itself wheels and turns at the command of our souls.
Ana and Otto are seen at three periods of their lives. When they are small, they have a chance meeting in the woods, and Otto falls in love with Ana. A message he writes on a paper airplane leads to a meeting between their parents, who fall in love, and there is a marvelous shot of Otto's face when he realizes that the girl he loves is going to become his stepsister. As teenagers, they are lovers. As adults, they are separated--although for one heart-stopping moment they sit back to back in a Spanish cafe, each unaware of the other. And then fate takes them both to Finland, where the great circles of their lives meet again.
Julio Medem, who wrote and directed "Lovers of the Arctic Circle," suggests that plot alone is not enough to explain a great love; faith is necessary, and an almost mystical belief that one is destined to share life with a single chosen person. His film more or less begins when Ana and Otto are young, and ends when they are older, but the story line is intercut with scenes and images that move back and forth in time and only gradually reveal their meanings. The shot at the beginning, for example, when one character is reflected in the eyes of another--we find out what that means at the end. And there are moments when a car either does, or does not, crash into a red bus. All becomes clear.
When you have a metaphysical system tiptoeing through a film, it's important that the actors provide a grounding of reality; otherwise, we're down the rabbit hole. There are many stretches in "Lovers of the Arctic Circle" that play just like ordinary drama, as we see the children growing up, we see their parents falling in love, we share the anger of Otto's mother when his father chooses the other woman, and we sense her hurt when Otto announces he wants to move in with the other family (it's not that he doesn't love his mother--but that he loves Ana more). There's even room for Ana's discovery that her mother may not be entirely faithful.
