Sex And Lucia

The sex is exhilarating and Lucia (Paz Vega) "a gift to this life." Spanish writer/director Julio Medem makes movies that twist in the wind - Cows, Earth, Lovers Of The Arctic Circle. They don't sit comfortably in categories. Neither are they genre clones. His visual imagination matches the originality of his ideas.

This time, he allows confusion to mess with the plot. Fact and fiction merge. The past and present are interchangable. The girl having sex in the sea is Elena (Najwa Nimri). The girl who falls down a hole in the beach is Lucia. The girl with the dangerous dog is Belen (Elena Anaya). The well-endowed man who covers himself in mud is Carlos (Daniel Freyre). The novelist who attracts all these women is Lorenzo (Tristan Ulloa).

How do they fit together? With difficulty.

Lucia is a waitress who becomes infatuated with Lorenzo after reading his first book. They end up living together and having wild sex. Six years earlier, Lorenzo was enjoying a one night stand in the sea on his birthday under a full moon with a girl from Valencia he had never met. She is Elena who becomes pregnant and has the baby, whom she names Luna.

There is an island. Lorenzo talks of it to Lucia, but they never go there. After he commits suicide, or has an accident - you don't know which - Lucia takes the ferry to the island and rents a room in Elena's house. Luna is being looked after by Belen, for some reason, whose mother is a retired porn star, who lives with Carlos, who has occasional sex with Elena.

Because time is shuffled and scenes from Lorenzo's novel acted out, as if they are happening for real, it is hard to keep track. Sex and paella have a connection. Lorenzo has writer's block and then he doesn't. An incident occurs behind a door with Luna and the dog. Belen seduces Lorenzo, who knows he shouldn't. Lucia gazes longingly at Carlos, when she's not walking naked on the beach. The moon is full. Passions simmer.

The colours are bleached. The look of the film is unexpected and fascinating. Vega is the new Penelope Cruz. Freyre wins highest sex appeal points amongst the blokes, possibly because he's so enigmatic. Even if you don't understand what on earth is going on, this is a movie that will stimulate hours of post viewing discussion, if only to be reminded of who did what to whom and why.