Julio Medem directed this inspired film for Sogetel and producer Enrique López Lavigne and it was released in 1998 . Lush and dreamily beautiful flick from the filmmaker of Sex and Lucia . Spanish production with sharp acting , colorful cinematography , excellently interpreted and rousing as well as delicate score by Alberto Iglesias . Strange story about a rare and uneasy love story between two half-brothers . Otto (Fele Martínez) and Ana (Najwa Nimri) are kids when they meet each other . As Otto is just eight years old when falls in love with Anna . Their names are palindromes . Both of whom meet by chance, people are related by chance . Otto's daddy , Alvaro (Nancho Novo),too falls in love with Ana's mummy , Olga (Maru Valdivieso) . They make a family with a faultline running through their heart . A story of circular lives , in which young lovers settle into a complex and dramatic emotional orbit . Both these youngsters with circular names love and live inside their heads . It revolves around a kaleidoscope of circles surrounding circles . Their relationship is almost telepathic , a secret from their parents and virtually themselves . As they get older and look back , there's also much play on their records . Captured at moments of crisis and separation, these characters are forced to confront the precariousness of their secret and the great black of their breaking up . And they end on a circular place where the day never ends in the midnight sun . There are things that never finish , and Love is one of them . Destiny cannot denied .

Intense as well as allusive loving drama with top-notch acting , superb photography and sensitive soundtrack . Plenty of symbolism , enjoyable scenes , emotion , romantic incidents and ineffably dramatical . It is a accomplished film with a fabulous realization about a love story which burns like ice . Medem shot this film after getting divorced, because it was the first time he experienced heartbreak and he wanted to write a movie about the love as the most powerful force, something that never ends and it's forever between two people . This brooding picture contains shrewd interpretation by a wonderful couple , Najwa Nimry and Fele Martínez , and a good support cast full of prestigious players giving alright performances . In 1998 Medem released " The lovers of the Polar Circle ," considered his best movie by most of his fans and is also Julio's most deeply felt picture to date . It also became a box-office hit with more than one million spectators in Spain and was also released worldwide . It is a thought-provoking film dealing with a story of solitary people , as a strange , unsettling young , well played by Fele Martinez , and his lover , subsequently suffering a sad separation , being rivetingly performed by Najwa Nimri . This is a thrilling , exciting , elusive , deliberate though magnetic drama ; it is closer to Jane Campion than Carlos Saura . It contains marvelous photography , breathtaking musical score and enjoyable production design . It is a fascinating film though sometimes a little boring , slow-pace and overlong . Anyway, the film is interesting , thematically intriguing and weird ; Medem has his own style of telling a story . Thrilling as well as distinguished musical score mirroring well the scenery, its people and the story line, it was superbly composed by several times Oscar nominated Alberto Iglesias , Julio Medem's usual . In addition , a spotless pictorial cinematography by Gonzalo F. Berridi and a willingness , almost perfect of the elements of each shot , every sequence , every space .

The motion picture was well produced by Enrique Lopez Lavigne and Fernando Bovaira and originally directed by Julio Medem . Julio has a sharp eye for human relationships and about peculiar love stories . Medem alternates various points of view , relating events from several perspectives . He can't resist games , pattern and stratagems . As he directed "Ardilla Roja" or ¨The red squirrel¨ released in 1993, it was selected for the Cannes Film Festival and it confirmed Medem's talents and won prizes in Fort Lauderdale, Bogota and Bucarest . Medem had been making short movies with a super-8 camera owned by his father until he received a call from a new production company called Sogetel and executive producers Fernando de Garcillán , José Luis Olaizola , Enrique López Lavigne . They were interested in his script titled "Vacas" . It won the Goya Award from the Spanish academy for best new director, and won prizes in the festivals of Tokyo, Torino and Alexandria. In 2001 his fourth movie, "Lucia and sex ," became a huge hit and began the career of actress Paz Vega who won the Goya for best new actress . Although in 2003 failed with the release , "The Basque ball" , a documentary that portrays the phenomenon of nationalism and terrorism in the Basque Country of northern Spain , it was very polemical and partial . In 2007 directed the flop ¨Caotica Ana¨ and in 2010 , ¨Room in Rome¨, a successful though with not sense film , filled with nudism and only starred by two gorgeous naked girls . Julio Medem is for sure one of the the most important and original Spanish filmmaker. Well worth watching if you get the chance .

I was loving this movie for the longest time, but near the end it was trying too hard to maintain its palindromic structure. When filmmakers put style over substance, it detracts from the film.

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It would have been perfect if they had just met up at the end and stayed with each other for the rest of their lives. If you think that sounds cheesy or cliched, just think to yourself what the last drama was where a couple actually fell in love and stayed there. You might say that that never happens, but this film was stressing the magical aspect of life. It would have made more sense if they had lived happily ever after at the end.

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Besides, I'm not even 100% sure what happened at the very end of this movie. Again, the filmmaker was stressing his construction too harshly. But I'm pretty sure Ana died (and her meeting with Otto was just her dying dream). This is an incredible let down! The film still had potential to be great until the very end. There's just no payoff. Even though the characters were not particularly well developed (and they didn't need to be, really; like I said above, this film was more of a magical fairy tale than a piece of realism),I had an emotional bond with them (or more likely, with their situation). I was feeling rather elated throughout the whole movie, but after it ended, there was no feelings to be felt. I would have given it at least an 8, and maybe as high as a 9 on the imdb grading scale, but I have to give it a 7/10. It was worth watching, but it will dissolve quickly from my memory.

"Lovers of the Arctic Circle" tells the love story of Ana and Otto from childhood into adult life with a carefully crafted precision which makes a simple romantic tale an inordinately complex jigsaw puzzle. An example of a high-minded director's selfgratifying egocentric palindromic production which forsakes the audience, "Lovers..." is a beautiful film wanting for almost nothing except coherence. Recommended for those into over-the-top Europics.