Somebody PLEASE release this on DVD in America!!!!

Somebody PLEASE release this on DVD in America!

The story concerns Otto and Ana, two children who met when they were eight, and whose lives become entwined further when Ottos father and Anas mother marry. However, the beginning shows Otto as a pilot delivering long distance air-mail and flashes back and forth to his childhood and adolescent years. As for Ana, we hear her voice over a cinematically beautiful scene of a lake reflecting the salmon-coloured sky, as if it were a lake of pink lemonade, the sun dipping down lower until looping back up in time-lapse photography. She says she could tell the story of her life through coincidences, and is waiting for the biggest one of all.

The action cuts between Ottos POV and Anas, so certain scenes are repeated, but we hear both characters thoughts, which provide insight into their characters. Both children have experienced losses. Ottos parents have split up, and Otto was closer to his mother. His mother is similarly counsels him on the impermanence of things. "Lifes tribulations have to be taken with humour because they come and go. They dont last forever."

Ana lost her father in a car accident and sees Otto as a reincarnation of her father, a present from her father for having died early.

The story of how Otto got his name, when his grandfather rescued a German pilot named Otto who was shot down over Guernica, plays a key role in this story of coincidences.

As time goes on, Otto and Ana fall for each other, and Otto even moves in with his father just to see Ana everyday. Despite not being biological siblings, they have to hide their love from their respective parents. However, the tide turns when Ottos mother dies, and a suicide attempt reveals the guilt Otto feels in giving too much attention to Ana, thus separating the two.

The two leads also appeared in Alejandro Amenebars Abre Los Ojos, Fele Martinez as Pelayo and Najwa Nimri as Nuria. As Otto and Ana, Martinez and Nimri pull sterling performances, exuding individuals going through their pained lives.

One series of shots of Otto and Ana being at the same square, but at different tables, barely missing each other, is intriguing. Otto is seen to the left, reading the want ads, and to his right but farther back, we see Ana, her back to him. Its one of those heartwrenching moments when I want to leap in and say, "Behind you!!"

The use of palindromic names, Otto and Ana symbolize the circular and eternal qualities of love. And check out the directors last name--Medem. And the Arctic Circle, beyond which the sun never sets in midsummer, also represents that eternal flame of love.

Yes, the ending is a bummer, but not so much. However, Id sure like to know what question Otto wrote on that paper airplane. And maybe someone else who has seen this movie can tell me if there is something that lasts forever.

I dont know how to put the brilliance of this movie into words. In the vein of "Pulp Fiction", "Run Lola Run", and "Before the Rain", "Lovers of the Arctic Circle" is a complex movie that dares to defy conventions of storytelling--using multi-perspectives, circular storylines, coincidences. This is not for everyone, since some people just like their stories to be flung onto their plates, challenges aside.

The story penetrates into the psyche by not telling it through one persons eyes--but both--the two lovers, Ana and Otto. This method of storytelling heightens our perspectives and increases the depth of emotion and thought. The story tells how Ana and Otto fall in love as children, and how their love only grows stronger throughout the years, despite trials and tribulations. Both perspectives weave in and out, combine once--and split at the very end. One ending is happy, the other is tragic--one is Anas, the other is Ottos.

This movie will haunt you for days afterward. It will force you to think about love, life, coincidences, fate, destiny, the unique twists and turns that life gives us, and the beauty of it all . . .

Of all the movies Ive seen in a lifetime, and thats a lot for the average human being, this is one of the most profoundly unique Ive ever seen.

It is an unexpectated stroke of brilliance.

OK, so its a romantic tragedy, and when the director manipulates the plot he is doing what Shakespeare does at the ending of Romeo and Juliet. I always found that contrived, too. The trouble is that unlike Romeo and Juliet, who are kept apart by powerful forces that create a genuine tragic tension, there is nothing to keep these lovers apart but a series of ludicrous coincidences. Or non-coincidences; can anyone believe that two lovers can sit 10 yards apart at different cafe tables and not notice each other? And what became of the co-pilot, thats what I want to know...

I didnt like this movie, even though it contains some beautiful sequences. I feel a bit better about it on reflecting that modern Spanish films tend to show the antithesis of Francos Spain. Because people were once repressed, now they have to go to the other extreme and be casually amoral at all times.

Lovers of the Arctic Circle is unforgettable.