Los amantes del Círculo Polar (1998)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Julio Medem

Writer:

Julio Medem (writer)

Release Date:

4 September 1998 (Spain)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Destiny cannot be denied.

Plot:

Otto and Ana are kids when they meet each other. Their names are palindromes. They meet by chance, people are related by chance...

Plot Keywords:

Love | Midnight Sun | Sun | Palindrome | Watching TV

Awards:

13 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Najwa Nimri	...	Ana joven
Fele Martínez	...	Otto joven
Nancho Novo	...	Álvaro
Maru Valdivielso	...	Olga
Peru Medem	...	Otto niño
Sara Valiente	...	Ana niña
Víctor Hugo Oliveira	...	Otto adolescente
Kristel Díaz	...	Ana adolescente
Pep Munné	...	Javier
Jaroslav Bielski	...	Álvaro Midelman
Rosa Morales	...	Sofía
Joost Siedhoff	...	Otto Midelman
Beate Jensen	...	Madre de Otto
Petri Heino	...	Aki
Outi Alanen	...	Mensajera

Also Known As:

Les amants du cercle polaire (France)
The Lovers from the North Pole (USA)
The Lovers of the Arctic Circle (International: English title)

MPAA:

Rated R for sexuality and brief language.

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

Spain | France

Language:

Spanish | English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Certification:

South Korea:15 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Chile:14 | Finland:K-8 | France:U | Germany:12 | Mexico:B | Peru:14 | Spain:13 | Sweden:7 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Helsinki, Finland

Company:

Canal+

Goofs:

Continuity: In the shop, the red heart continuously appears and disappears from the counter.

Quotes:

Ana: They say, that inside the arctic circle, on summer nights the sun does not set. They call it the midnight sun.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Palindromes (2004)

Soundtrack:

Sinitaivas

A philosophical movie about love and life, about coincidences,... Interesting, but probably not to everybody's taste.

Los Amantes del Círculo Polar is probably not a movie to everybody's taste. If you want to see a lot of action, great comedy or some astonishing special effects, you better don't even think about watching this one. In fact it hasn't much more to offer but some philosophical thinking. Thinking about destiny and how we can't escape from it, thinking about life and love, thinking about coincidences...

It starts with a young boy running through a forest because he wants to retrieve a soccer ball. A girl of about his age is running through the same forest. She's running because her mother told her that her father has died. He follows her and she falls on the ground. She sees him and immediately recognizes her father in him, he on the other hand immediately falls in love with her... Because of some coincidences his father and her mother start a relationship and they become "brother and sister". As they grow older their love for each other doesn't fade, but their lives separate. In the end they meet each other again, not in Spain, but in Lapland (Finland).

Los Amantes del Círculo Polar is shot in a very original way. First you get the scene from the point of view of one of the two characters, than you get the scene again, but this time from the other character's side. Even though the director has paid more attention to the story and the way it was told than to the performances of the actors, this still is a very impressive movie. I give it an 8.5/10