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There is little doubt that the United States has
grown more conservative in recent years. That
has very much been reflected in Hollywood, which has become the land of the prudes.
Outside of mediocre Adrian Lyne films, sex appears in major Hollywood releases only hidden
behind the juvenile antics of gross-out comedies like Something About Mary or Scary Movie. Meanwhile, world cinema becomes ever more audacious
with the likes of Y Tu Mama Tambien
(Mexico), Late Marriage (Israel), Intimacy (Britain), Lies (South Korea), and Romance (France), all of which tackle
sex as a serious subject. Now add
Spain’s powerful, lyrical melodrama, Sex and Lucia, to the list.
Sex and Lucia fulfills the promise of the title as it is
littered with intercourse, masturbation, nudity, and erect penises. Although the actors
are world-class chocolates as eye candy, the sex rarely feels gratuitous. It is used for characterization – to display
joy, playfulness, embarrassment, insecurity, or inhibition – all of which reflect on
the state of character relationships.
In the story, impetuous waitress Lucia (Paz Vega) believes her lover,
novelist Lorenzo (Tristan Ulloa), has died in a car accident. Fatigued by their long
unraveling relationship and its end, Lucia travels to an island Lorenzo always talked
about but refused to visit. As she slowly uncovers secrets on the island that he had long
hidden from her, flashbacks reveal the course of their five-year relationship. Before Lorenzo met Lucia, a one-night bout of
anonymous sex with a woman named Elena (Najwa Nimri) produced a daughter, Luna (Silvia
Llanos). Knowing little other than where
Lorenzo was from, Elena arrived with Luna in Madrid to seek him out. By pure chance, Lorenzo’s publisher, Pepe
(Javier Camara), discovered Luna’s existence, and Lorenzo, now passionately in love
with Lucia, discreetly tracked down his daughter. What
followed, involving Luna, her sitter Belen (Elena Anaya), and Antonio (Daniel Freire),
the boyfriend of Belen’s mother, would forever change Lorenzo and his relationship
with Lucia. Or did it? Writer-director Julio Medem freely mixes
Lorenzo’s pseudo-autobiographical fiction with real story events, casting just enough
suspicion to make one doubt which is which. The
result is to make one aware of the creative process in both the story one is watching and
the fiction within the fiction.
Julio Medem’s previous film, the distant, symbol-laden Lovers of the Arctic Circle
would ill-prepare one for the voluptuous feast that is Sex and Lucia. One won’t find a more sensuous movie this
year. The entire cast is terrific with the
added bonus of physically just smoldering on screen.
Special mention goes to Javier Camara (remaining clothed in a bit part), who
brings humor to the screen just by his very presence.
Some critics have complained about the vast array of implausible
coincidences in the movie’s plot, but those are beside the point. Sex and Lucia is clearly modeled on Greek
tragedies of the Oedipus variety with the caveat that a good deal of it may or may not be
a fiction within the film. The movie is an
enormous series of contrivances relying on fate and destiny, but it never pretends to be
otherwise. Sex and Lucia works like a
fairy tale, transporting the viewer to sumptuous Spanish landscapes populated with vividly
realized characters hurled into circumstances beyond their realization or control. But just as fate can take friends and lovers away,
it can also bring them together. The movie
has a company of characters and a trove of opulent experiences to revisit many times.
-
George Wu
