There IS something magic about the Arctic Circle. (Can you imagine anything good entitled "Lovers of the Tropic of Capricorn"? Of course not.) And this IS an interesting film. That's my problem, really. An enchanting story, an unenchanting film: something obviously went wrong.
How many films have you seen in which friends, allies, lovers, etc. have been within striking distance of one another without realising it? It's an irritating device, isn't it? Here are Otto and Ana, sitting back to back at an outdoor café. Look! Otto turns his head thirty degrees. WILL he catch her in his peripheral vision? No, false alarm. Now Ana is distracted by some sound or other. She glances around. WILL she notice Otto ... almost there ... no, didn't make it. Now Otto scratches his elbow. WILL he... Bah. There's a limit to how much of this contrived suspense I can take, especially when, in the end, it leads nowhere.
Now is the time to stop reading if you haven't seen the film... But what takes the cake is the ending. The merciless, gloating torture to which Medem subjects his characters in the café scene is nothing compared to this. Okay: so Ana is in Finland, Otto knows that Ana is in Finland, and Ana knows that Otto knows that Ana is in Finland. How long can it take to bring them together? As long as Medem can keep the cameras running, it seems. I've never seen such a protracted denouement. If that were all, though, I could yet forgive him...
So, DO they meet in the end? I've spent some time thinking about it and I still have no idea. They end up in the same place, but we've just seen how many times THAT can happen without result. My GUESS is that Ana dies. I can't see why Otto (the Spaniard) would calmly wait in Otto's (the Fin's) kitchen afterwards while Ana's life was hanging in the balance; so probably that entire sequence DIDN'T really happen, after all. In any event, I don't see the POINT of all this uncertainty. Why not just tell us what happens? That is, after all, what story-tellers are meant to do; it's what Medem had in fact been doing all along before he decided to get clever. (But note that if Ana dies, we have every right to feel sour, after sitting through an hour of when-will-they-finally-meet-up beforehand. Medem made us an implicit promise, and broke it.)
I'm glad I saw it, and there are moments of pleasure. But it's as if Medem injected a good dose of quinine into the story simply in order to prevent us from getting TOO much pleasure. It's hard not to be haunted with a sense of how much better it could have been.
How many films have you seen in which friends, allies, lovers, etc. have been within striking distance of one another without realising it? It's an irritating device, isn't it? Here are Otto and Ana, sitting back to back at an outdoor café. Look! Otto turns his head thirty degrees. WILL he catch her in his peripheral vision? No, false alarm. Now Ana is distracted by some sound or other. She glances around. WILL she notice Otto ... almost there ... no, didn't make it. Now Otto scratches his elbow. WILL he... Bah. There's a limit to how much of this contrived suspense I can take, especially when, in the end, it leads nowhere.
Now is the time to stop reading if you haven't seen the film... But what takes the cake is the ending. The merciless, gloating torture to which Medem subjects his characters in the café scene is nothing compared to this. Okay: so Ana is in Finland, Otto knows that Ana is in Finland, and Ana knows that Otto knows that Ana is in Finland. How long can it take to bring them together? As long as Medem can keep the cameras running, it seems. I've never seen such a protracted denouement. If that were all, though, I could yet forgive him...
So, DO they meet in the end? I've spent some time thinking about it and I still have no idea. They end up in the same place, but we've just seen how many times THAT can happen without result. My GUESS is that Ana dies. I can't see why Otto (the Spaniard) would calmly wait in Otto's (the Fin's) kitchen afterwards while Ana's life was hanging in the balance; so probably that entire sequence DIDN'T really happen, after all. In any event, I don't see the POINT of all this uncertainty. Why not just tell us what happens? That is, after all, what story-tellers are meant to do; it's what Medem had in fact been doing all along before he decided to get clever. (But note that if Ana dies, we have every right to feel sour, after sitting through an hour of when-will-they-finally-meet-up beforehand. Medem made us an implicit promise, and broke it.)
I'm glad I saw it, and there are moments of pleasure. But it's as if Medem injected a good dose of quinine into the story simply in order to prevent us from getting TOO much pleasure. It's hard not to be haunted with a sense of how much better it could have been.