Lovers Of The Arctic Circle

Not, as the title suggests, a documentary on Finnish copulation

Film Review by Lindsay West | 12 Mar 2007
Film title: Lovers Of The Arctic Circle
Release date: Out now.
Not, as the title suggests, a documentary on Finnish copulation – Lovers of the Arctic Circle is instead f'ted Spanish director Julio Medem's treatise of the destiny vs. blind chance conundrum: an existential fairy tale of sorts, made before Sex and Lucia, and finally receiving its overdue and well-deserved DVD release.

Otto and Ana meet when they are eight, brought together by their palindromic names, a mis-kicked football and a chase in the park - a subsequent chain of undeniable coincidences then keeping them forever linked in a romance with an unshakable air of destiny.

With all the storybook sensibilities of Amelie, and an appetite for the experimental that thankfully bypasses the clever-clever, this is an absolute pleasure from beginning to end – and even when it ends, there's a lovely making-of featurette included on the DVD to sustain the buzz.

Charming, poignant, and just plain good, even the subtitle-phobic shouldn't allow a little bit of reading to exclude them from a film for which there simply aren't enough superlatives. [Lindsay West]
Release Date: Out now.