Sex and Lucia [Blu-ray]

I guess people are molded by holywood standards and talk too much about some naked piece of flesh, but this movie is so much more than that. Relax and watch the movie and you'll enjoy it and if you have time to see the extras on the DVD you'll understand even better why it is so special. The plot, the actors, the camera and the music score are absolutely amazing. It's like drinking coffee at work (in US) for years and than you go somewhere overseas, in Italy or Spain and suddenly realize that coffee is so much more than some dirty brown water. You might not like it, but you'll have to accept that the real thing is great. Somewhere in this world some people think of acting and movies as a form of art, not just a money machine.

"It's a story filled with advantages. The first advantage is that at the end of the story. It doesn't finish. It falls in a hole, and the story starts again halfway. The other advantage, and the biggest ... is that you can change course along the way. If you let me. If you give me time."

First viewing ... mostly watched and "kind-of" read the dialogue; found it a stunningly attractive film with good acting and confusing plot.

Second I sat down and went though some of the extras that were so caringly included on the DVD; and decided to really sit through it and try to keep on the dialogue. You can tell the makers of the film believed this one on terrific script.

Third, sat up until 2am reading and watching it. Wow, I was moved by the detail and caring that went into the script. The expressions on the faces: when Lucia runs home fearing something bad has happened to her boyfriend, the expression of the Nanny when she opened the door, and Lorenzo running down the street, and of course the last 20 minutes with the swaying camera (which was increased by having the actors walk on a board on-top of a roller to keep them off balance when they walked).

SYMBOLISM and Foreshadowing: The Moon=Daughter, Sun=Lorenzo, Mermaid=Mother. Even in early bar scene the TV images foreshadow what is to come; as does Lucia's review of his second novel and its "optimistic" ending she felt took away from the impact. The lighthouse and moon images. Such detail, even when it shows a couple getting into an SUV, the car interior is sudden lit to show bars in the back cargo area - so subtle it is easily missed, but so important.

Sex is a theme, and they use it to effect the viewer -- yes trick the viewer -- into focusing on it just like the characters are doing and to miss the gravity of what is important around them. Sex is the Island -- and it is hollow -- such is how people focus on sex as being the substance of something when it is not the fabric of reality people seem make it. Hypocrites (people in denial) will have a real tough time with the nudity because - guess what - they obsessed on it just like the characters in the movie. Take it like someone holding hands, going shopping, or eating dinner -- sure it is part of life, but it is not what life is about (the hollow island).

It takes some concentration, but you will find it so moving. This movie is packed with so much content, you get more out of it with each viewing. Highly recommended for the thinkers out there.

"Sex and Lucia" is NOT all about sex, though the candid and explicit sex scenes are, to me, just gratuitous. But the film's strength is not that part; it is the beautiful photography and great acting by Paz Vega as Lucia, the title role of the film.

The film begins with Lucia talking over phone to her boyfriend who, it seems, is thinking about suicide. Desperate Lucia goes back to their room, only to find that he is not there. Since then, the film starts to show its peculiar trait -- it jumps back and forth between the past and the present, the reality and fiction (Lucia's boyfriend Lorenzo is a novelist). You see Lucia standing at the rocky coast of a tiny island; she stumbles into a hole only to find a cave (meaning hidden side of her life?); and the story goes back to 6 years ago, when Lorenzo and Lucia started seeing each other, but even then he seems to have had an affair with another lady on the island ....

The script of "Sex and Lucia" is so intricately woven that to say anything about it means a disservice to the tantalizing complexity. The reason is probably the director Julio Medem's penchant for teasing the audience's expectations, and he was good at it as is seen in his previous "Lovers of the Arctic Circle." Perhaps he wanted to do a brighter (and more complicated) story for the next film; if so, he succeeds well.

However, I for one prefer the love story of Ana and Otto described in "Lovers of the Arctic Circle." (Incidentally, Najwa Nimri, "Ana" comes back here again.) "Sex and Lucia," though never boring, has too many characters, and some scenes, which get very close to pretentiousness, are still unclear to me. What ever happended to the girl and the dog? What is the meaning of lying among the mud? Perhaps I am a slow learner; still I believe that I am not the only one who scratched the head, trying to figure out the way to make them out. I heard that Julio Medem thought about the story of Lucia first, and the "Sexo" part, and mixed the latter into the first. That might be the reason of complex nature of the film.

The film should be (and actually is) Lucia's. Paz Vega's convincing acting single-handedly creates the character of Lucia, who is both frail and strong, rivetting the eye of the audience. The film has lots of sex, but what we are really attracted to is her great performance. See it as her film.