Los Amantes del Círculo Polar * Julio Medem * 1998
“Los Amantes…” was one of these ‘bigger’ filmhouse-films that I still wanted to see. It is of the same director as of Lucía Y El Sexo (2001) which is another film I still haven’t seen “Los Amantes” is about two young people with palindromic (Otto and Ana) names who meet and feel attracted to eachother at an very early age When their parents get a relationship the two get to live together secretly having a relationship as well, while their parents see them as brother and sister. When Otto’s biological mother dies he goes even more insane as he already is and leaves his father, stepmother and even Ana The two continue their lives but still hope that fate will bring them together some time. This does happen eventually, but…
The film is slowly told in two versions, a version of Otto and a version of Ana. The two versions go through eachother and after eachother. Sometimes you get two versions of the same event, sometimes not. Because both seem to have difficulty keeping reality and fantasy appart, you don’t know what is real and what is not. You even don’t know if it is a happy end or not!
All in all a nice romantic film.