User reviews

This is one of the better structured movies ever put to screen. It's as complex as Lynch's Lost Highway, but that only adds to the experience. A non-linear structure (in time and space) is applied and Lucia y el Sexo blurs the line between reality and imagination.

Basically, it's like Mulholland Drive: Most of what we see is a dream, imagination. Only a relatively small part did really happen. But this goes one step further: What part is in the eye of the beholder here, because little clues are given so the mystery format is only used to keep us entertained at a basic level.

A writer is the center here. Some parts of his life are probably true (trouble at home, sickness), others are ambiguous, others are certainly imagined. He is in the meta-story, but also places himself in threads in the other stories that come from his imagination. His imagination is formed by applying smaller and larger events (meeting a person at a party, seeing someone in front of the house) in his personal life to his fantasies. His erotic fantasies explain the title, as sex is one of the characters of the story. One of the story lines is again about his script read on the island by one of his imagined characters. Writing the story and telling the story is done simultaneously. As he becomes sick, the characters become helpless in the story. Overall it helps a lot if you keep imagining that you're watching imagined characters being manipulated by the writer. This combines meta-story and story, real with imagination, weaving several threads in a complicated web of story lines. In the end, it is made clear that the story doesn't end but starts again halfway, giving further evidence that viewers can use their imagination at random on this and create their own story out of it.

The meta-story is interesting, but by mixing it with the story itself we see the real story as what it is, a writing trick with imagined characters. That unfortunately diminishes the emotions a movie tries to convey. We're merely watching how a movie is structured, with the imagined story not having the usual dramatic impact.

It's remarkable that so many people are offended by the sex scenes, as it's already in the title. Do they also complain about the presence of aliens in Alien? I found the sex scenes to be made with some honesty; and at least they didn't even shy away of male nudity.

(8/10) Refreshing, delightful, sexy. moving and thought-provoking movie from Spain. Not really porn (as the title might suggest) although there is some very artistic explicitness. It is movies like this one that remind us that European cinema can scale the emotional dilemmas and mountains of a story where other films look at a storyline in terms of physical developments. Lucia, a young waitress in Madrid, falls completely in love with a writer. After a period of blissful togetherness, something from his past pulls him in two directions. We are caught up in his moral dilemma, of not wanting to lose the wonderful gift he has found and yet not wanting to be untrue to himself. The semi-autobiographical novel he is writing pulls together the story and the emotions and hopes of the characters and introduces ideas that enable them to heal some of their hurt. A central idea is that of finding a hole (symbolically on the sandy beach) where, after reaching the end of the story, you can jump back into the middle. That way you can try an make things turn out better ("If you give me time", says Lorenzo, Lucia's boyfriend.) A more mature and rounded work than the Director's earlier "Lovers of the Arctic Circle", Sex and Lucia combines wonderful acting, a great story, innovative cinema and spine-tingly beautiful photography. One of my favourite films of the year.

I found this film absolutely terrific. Ik know there's a lot of sex in it and yes, there are a lot of suspicious coincidences, but I looked past that.

For starters, I loved the story, it wasn't boring at all, despite what some may say. It was a sort of twisty fairytale to me, just like 'Los Amantes del Circulo Polàr' was. I love good fairy tales!

The acting was very good by most actors (I love you Najwa!), and good by the others. Even the girl that played Luna was convincing.

The film has a lot of explicit scenes (sexual and non-sexual) but besides from that Médem accomplishes to put a lot of suggestion in it (sexual and non-sexual). If you watch it attentively and past merely what you see, you will notice the subtlety of the characters and story.

Last of all i would like to say that the English title (Sex and Lucia) is an abomination to the original title (Lucia y el Sexo). The word are the same, but the word order has flipped, which gives the title a whole other meaning, to my opinion. The film is about Lucia and the meaning sex has in her life and the life of others. It is not about sex and the way Lucia handles with it. The meaning of film titles is often lost in translation (no pun intended). Why can't American (and other) people keep the original title? We can in Belgium.

A la proxima

. . .and it's not really even about Lucia! Lucia y el Sexo is actually about Lorenzo, Lucia's novelist boyfriend, and the consequences of a sexual encounter he had in the past which has led to a catastrophic event in his life. It's a languid and tempestuous poem of a movie, told in a non-linear way by the extremely ambitious Julio Medem.

As a novelist myself, I deeply related to Lorenzo's blurring of reality and imagination. Your characters MUST be real to you in order for them to live and breathe on the page, and so much of your own life goes into the characters that the lines of course do blur. And then there's the subconscious, which cannot differentiate between fantasy and reality. Medem understands all this very well, and his depiction of it is remarkable.

The title, I believe, refers to Lorenzo's past (The Sex and what happened as a result of it), and his present (Lucia). Paz Vega and Tristan Ulloa are stunning as the two leads - Vega with her fierce intelligence and Ulloa with his tormented vulnerability. I would have given this film a 10 if it hadn't been for the fact that the most pivotal scene is shot in an incredibly vague manner, which left me confused as to what had actually happened until much later in the movie, but it is a brilliant and heartfelt experience nonetheless.

This movie in my view is not understandable without any notion of the 'soul', whose movements are made visible by magnificent underwater shots. The sexual scenery functions not only as entrance to the story; I think Medem really wanted to depict something like 'the ultimate sex' both as experience and as ultimate, divine ideal, something like Goethes 'eternal feminine.' As something to strive for, it can deeply affect our lives by giving it the splendour we need to keep it worthwhile, even if we fail. At the same time, it is also a power deep down, a dark shadow that haunts us. It's for us to see, to accept, and to decide: do we want to go to our island and unite the two, as Lucia does? In that case, we might see that in the end our stories come true as well, be it by breaking in in the middle.

The question I asked myself after watching the movie for the third time was: where exactly is this 'middle' of it? It seems to me that it's around the scene where Elena is walking through Madrid with Luna in her baby carriage, while passing the apartment of Lucia and Lorenzo. From then on, the decisions made by the novelist - like the shivery death of his child - are such that there is no way back. Lorenzo, Lucia and their relationship are too heavily shaken up. Both have to get into a new reality which can transform their personalities; to both, this means a form of dying and leaving their old personalities behind. They surely resist this, especially Lorenzo; but also he has to put himself at risk, following the demands of his 'blood', that is, of his sex, death and rebirth. And there the story takes over the initiative from the writer, who himself is thrown into it - in the middle, where he leaves his home and runs into his 'accident'. Exactly that scene is not shown - it's the hole in the middle, through which the old reality passes into the new.

For me, this movie is a small masterpiece, which shows how film and literature can work together, and how more powerful ideas about ourselves are then the circumstances we are put into. The 'form' of the persons is therefore changeable: like Lorenzo during the last Island episode has 'changed' into Carlos. As the 'transformed' Lorenzo turns up on the island, with his distress and his love for both Elena and Lucia, 'Carlos' is no longer necessary and the women can leave him behind. The fact that Elena is eventually able to weep, marks the acceptance of her loss, which 'naturally' returns her child to her from the middle of the picture again.

The earlier film by Julio Médem (Lovers of the Arctic Circle) is a prelude to the kind of cinematography that this Spanish film director/writer presents here. I have read most of the other comments, but they don't do justice to it, mainly because of the lack of understanding the original tongue of this film. The screenplay is excellent, full of metaphors and a rich use of very carefully chosen words. People who consider this film just an excuse for depicting sex scenes as the highlight of the movie are pretty much clueless. It is more than that, it is the complex storytelling that tangles the characters in this movie and the way that is told. Compelling and breath-taking. A must see.

This is really one of the better constructed movies I've seen in a while.

Both the storytelling and style of the movie can be called unique.

It starts mixing reality with fiction and its hard to tell what really happened and what didn't. It features lots of 'what-if' themes and the story is being rewritten in the characters mind, also with lots of symbolism, mainly with the moon and the water. It doesn't make this the most accessible movie but then again, you don't ever have to watch an European movie for its accessibility.

Things start off quite slow but as the story develops the story gets more and more complicated and non-linear, when the line between fiction and reality gets blurred more and more. It does make the movie hard to follow at times but it at the same time makes the movie more interesting to watch and enables everybody start to define things on their own. You of course have to be open to these sort of movies though. Also the very explicit nudity isn't just for everybody.

Sex plays a key part in the movie. It helps to tell the story and plays a significant role in the story lines and help to indicate when things are truth or fiction. Never before has sex played such a key part in the storytelling of a movie.

This movie is always presented as a Paz Vega but this movie it's main character is in my opinion played by Tristán Ulloa. He's the writer, were the entire movie involves around. The story is mostly set inside his head. The three main actors (Paz Vega, Tristán Ulloa, Najwa Nimri) of the movie are really good and carry the entire movie.

Visually the movie is really great and impresses just as much as the storytelling of the movie. The camera-work and colors are really great and create a very unique atmosphere for the movie. It helps to make "Lucía y el sexo" an even bigger and more enjoyable movie to watch, visually.

Those who are open for an unique, one of a kind, unusual movie experience, will surely be delighted with this magnificent beautiful looking and constructed movie.

9/10

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Stories told in a so-called "magical realism" style like this film can be very tricky. The story and the characters need to be very strong to sustain all the twists of the plot and I don't think this was pulled off here. I was disappointed, as I'd enjoyed Medem's previous film Los Amantes del Circulo Polar, where the passionate love story seemed a lot more genuine and the tragic ending seemed to fit better with the theme of fate playing with people's lives than Lucia y el sexo's tragic-to-happy contortions.

Also, while the female characters were all charming and sexy, the male roles were really poor and unconvincing. What on earth did Lucia see in Lorenzo? There isn't enough to justify her endurance and patience with him. Their whole love story seems artificial from the inception, it seems there was too much work on the symbolism of their relationship - the tormented writer and storyteller, the reader and savior (Lucia as a ray of sunshine) - rather than on the real intensity of feeling between two people. The sex scenes are too stylish and sleek to be really passionate. Everyone is good looking and well dressed, they live in nice apartments, exist in a bubble where the society around them doesn't seem to affect them, this is obviously purposefully so and ideally you wouldn't mind that lack of realism if the story was engrossing enough, which it isn't.

The entire plot seems to revolve around the concept of the ability to deal with tragic fateful events by rewriting, literally and metaphorically, one's own life story. But the final optimism comes across as too artificial. The plot does not resolve the fate of the child Luna, Lorenzo's daughter. The tragedies seem more like a prop, a trick to demonstrate how love can conquer guilt, remorse and failure. They're not given enough weight. People slash their wrists or throw themselves under buses easier than they cry, then we're supposed to believe they can just forget and forgive and live happily ever after.

The director says he wanted to make everything "light" in this film, after the experience with the previous one. But I think he overdid it! There is a bit too much of the French 'Amelie' in Lucia's character, she is more like a beautiful fairy than a real person. Elena, too, is more a symbol of caring and nurturing (motherhood, cooking, taking care of Lucia) than a real grieving mother. Her lack of anger and bitterness is not very believable. The whole escapist symbol of the floating island becomes annoying after a while. It functions on the characters like a drug inducing apathy and oblivion, more of a way of avoiding pain than confronting it. But it's not that, it's the way in which it's presented and wrapped up at the end that really disappoints - too fancy and too abstract to really work.

It's not a bad film. It's full of eye candy - the spectacularly gorgeous Paz Vegas, the island, the photography - and it is well directed and well acted overall. But without all that, the story itself wouldn't really be worth much.

At time beautiful, at time confusing like hell, this movie is worth watching. I must admit it caught me off-guard. I guess I was expecting another "Y tu mama tambien", for some reason. But this one is closer to "Adaptation." Lorenzo is consumed with his novel. Reality and fiction become all tangled. Confused, I identify with a previous user that said that he wanted to like the movie, but found it difficult. As for the sex scenes, they're passionate, pure, some could even say beautiful. There's nothing wrong with that. I enjoyed both performances by Paz Vega (Lucía) and Tristán Ullea (Lorenzo), but it's Elena Anaya (Belen) who steals the show. She's sublime in her role. As for the "the never ending" theme, I suspect the director used it to clear away a lot of guessing that people might have watching his film.

Out of 100, I gave it 75. That's good for **½ out of ****.

Seen at home, in Toronto, on November 13th, 2004.

There is nothing to like about this movie. Even the much talked about sex scenes start to get boring, since they are so gratuitous and repetitive. The film is poorly scripted and none of the psychological reactions of the characters ring true. No one could take seriously the character of Lorenzo the novelist who writes such juvenile autobiographical stories. And what about the plot holes and loose ends? Why the hell does the family dog suddenly attack the young girl, with whom it had lived for years? What purpose does it serve to leave open the fate of the babysitter, her mother and Carlos (who literally disappears down a hole)? The movie tries to be deep, but fails embarrassingly.

Once again Julio Meden reminds us that doing movies is an art. Not just story telling, but Art. The very way of telling the story can be artful, and this flick is a nice example. Newspaper reviews in my city gave it two stars out of four, but this guys would never give good ranking to a movie without gay action or dark, 10-ton-of-sadness endings. Great movies, artistically speaking, can be done without leaving the feel-good mood, like this one. Good acting, superb job of photography, optimistic way of portraying the human being, an excellent movie!

Don´t be shocked with the sex scenes, there´s much more story around. The director was very courageous to jeopardize the movie reputation among puritan, hypocritical viewers. 10 out of 10.

What is sex and Lucia all about? This isn't as clear from the title as it would seem and after churning it over nothing gets any clearer. Sex does appear, quite frequently, and links many of the characters together but the film isn't all about sex. In fact sex is unembarrassing, pleasurable and regret free and although it appears often it seems simply to be presented as a fact of life.

Unfortunately everything else seems to be part of a dizzying metaphor in a cyclical plot. Unless deconstructing convoluted narratives is your thing this can be a problem. Lucia is a waitress who follows and seduces Lorenzo an author who writes books about passionate encounters and into cycle we go. Couplings, fantasies and melodramas unfold, events mirror each other, and the timeline twists and turns on itself and in the end (it all gets very metaphysical) I think Medem tries to tell us that imagination makes reality what we will. What's real and what is invention becomes irrevocably blurred (is this the point?). The symbolism becomes heavy handed, even the holiday island that the characters revolve around itself is almost not an island, criss-crossed by subterranean sea caves where one can enter at one point and emerge at another and fantastically rocks in stormy weather.

Despite the maturity and tenderness with which the love scenes are treated, the heavy handed symbolism and contortionist plot work to throw off any emotional intensity that the acting and powerful soundtrack can build. It ends up being too clever to exercise any real intelligence.

With Lucia y el sexo Julio Medem draws on a lot of his familiar themes. Destiny,coincidence and fate alternating courses during people's lives. He also handled love and memories as important drives of people. Children tend to portray people's consciousness, with their fresh and honest innocence. As Luna's fate in this movie both infects and cleanses Salvador, taking him through his past and present.

Medem also likes to use nature to symbolize stages and feelings in his character's lives. The moon, soil, water and fish all come back repeatedly, each with a different meaning. This gives the movie a beautiful dreamy atmosphere, strongly backed up by the camera work.

Now to the sex in the movie. It's very strong from the beginning, but besides it's explicitness Medem also deals with it very sensitively. The sex is arousing but meaningful too. Anyone who's been in a passionate relationship must be touched by Salvador and Lucia's sex life, leading toward an almost dangerous addiction. I wondered if the rest of their relationship was strong enough to pass the test of time though, sex seemed to be at the core of their love. Some of the sex scenes were very aesthetically directed and filmed. The cunnilingus scene on this symphony-like music was classic! It's definitely the best oral sex scene I've ever seen on film. Arousing with a smile. I was also happy to see that the UK-version of the video was uncut, showing the male organs. Very refreshing that men are also portrayed vulnerably in a movie. The sex is much stronger and important in the first part of the film. That was functionable in the story as the characters saturate themselves in it, leading to problems, but somehow to me it also felt unbalanced.

Julio Medem has really made a beautiful film with Lucia y el sexo. I found it profoundly moving and captivating. You have to let yourself be carried away though or you might become saturated yourself, with the abundance of symbolism and sex.

In Madrid of the present days, the waitress Lucia (Paz Vega) leaves her job and goes to her apartment to meet her mate Lorenzo (Tristian Ulloa), who seems to be very depressed. When she arrives, she receives bad news about Lorenzo from the police. She moves alone to an isolated island, where she meets a stranger and lodges in a pension where he is living for the last months. The story shifts to six years ago, when Lorenzo and a woman, without knowing even the name of each other, have a magnificent sexual intercourse. The woman gets pregnant, and her daughter is raised with out a father. Meanwhile, Lorenzo is a writer that lost his creation skills and one night meets Lucia in a restaurant. She confesses to him that she is in love with him and has been stalking him for a long time. They fall in love for each other and Lucia moves to his apartment. Later, Lorenzo is informed by his friend Pepe (Javier Cámara) that he has a daughter, and he meets her in a square, with her baby sitter. From this point on, Lorenzo mixes his reveries with reality.

"Lucia y el Sexo" is a weird movie, with a style that resembles David Lynch. I am not sure whether this was the intention of the director Julio Medem, or whether his screenplay is indeed only confused. There are too much gratuitous sex scenes and exposure of genitals, inclusive of penises, and although Paz Vega is a delicious woman, I do not like this type of appellative exaggeration in a film. The story has good points, does not have clichés, and has many metaphoric scenes. I understand that the title of this movie mainly refer to periods of time, "Lucia" in the present days, sharing her life with Lorenzo, and "Sex" the consequences of his intercourse with an unknown woman six years ago. In the end, I found "Lucia y el Sexo" an excessively erotic film, with a confused screenplay, but also very intriguing. I intend to see this movie again in a near future and reevaluate it, trying to see if it becomes clearer after a second time. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Lucia e o Sexo" ("Lucia and the Sex")

Every time I watch a film by Julio Medem, the same thing happens to me, and that is that I feel weightless and it feels like time is slower and the images have a different color. With this film, it was no exception; the moment the credits appeared and I left the theater my feet felt like I was floating over the ground.

This spanish auteur, has showed us throughout time, that he is able to wake up even the most hidden feelings from us and play with them as the pieces of the puzzles that are his movies are set together like in "vacas", "la ardilla roja" and most greatly in "los amantes del circulo polar".

What call my attention the most is that, I have the feeling that Medem tried to get away from his past with this story but ended up coming back to it, which is a great thing in the sense that the poetry and melancholy that is always present in his movies, are also part of this one.

The main question regarding the film is, What does "Lucia y el sexo" mean?, what is the correlation between what happens and the actual ritual of sex? You have to see it to get a conclusion...Is it love?, lust?, loss of innocence?, or just a part of the human condition? To get an idea, you have to let yourself go along the images and surely you might find the answer at the end.

One more thing, who wouldn´t fall in love with someone like Lucia? I would also say yes, the very first moment she would come near me.

"Sex and Lucia" is a subtitled drama out of Spain which swirls around a head-to-toe scrumptious Vega as it wends its way circuitously through its convoluted plot. Unfortunately the story can't reach out and grab the audience in spite of fine performances and good everything else because the emphasis is not on the players but on the diddled up storyline which is about as interesting as a mobius strip. In short, the film messes with the time domain which is more confounding than engrossing, more novel than substantive, and, after a 2+ hour run, wears out more than wraps up. An honest, sincere misfire, this flick will be of most interest to those into Eurodramas with tastefully done sex, nudity, and French angst. (B-)

Julio Medem had directed a few movies before this one, with his "key" movies (Vacas, Tierra, Ardilla roja, Amantes del circulo polar) being basically the same plot rehashed in a different way. The afore-mentioned movies, in my opinion reflected limited directorial skills and zero originality.

So, he "moves into the 2000s" with a movie in which you see a constant parade of genitals followed by sex. If you like naked bodies and uncensored sex, go for it by all means. However, don't try to pass it off as "transcendental" or "artistic" like Medem did.

There is no plot. None. You get more of a plot swirling a bowl of alphabet soup with your spoon. Even Najwa Nimri, usually extremely convincing and talented, phones this one in.

What it boils down to is this: if you want to see sex, see this movie. If you want to see a movie with sex and a plot, then keep looking.

This is the kind of movie you'll like and you'll have to see again. So smart, so amazingly entertaining, full of details you begin to realize as the end is approaching. As opposed to what some people may think, I believe that all the sex scenes, although they are pretty explicit, are totally necessary in order to tell the story and to show the characters just as they are. It's a movie to really think about and it goes from what it seems a twisted story full of rather weird elements to a (if you wanna see it in that way) sweet and simple love story. The acting was good, but mostly because there was a great book and a great direction behind it: Médem's work was remarkable. If you don't mind seeing some, you may say, awkward sex scenes, and you're looking for a really great plot, with great dialogs full of symbolisms, and also excellent photography, then you're just gonna love this one.

Don't know what to say.. it's not bad I like the story...and in some way the performance But the best thing was the music.. it's one of my favorite soundtracks

Lucía (Paz Vega) is a young waitress in a restaurant in the centre of Madrid. Lorenzo (Tristan Ulloa) is a a writer who is blocked , while his editor (Javier Camara) suggests him he write about a sexual tryst and to put a lot of sex in it . This meeting is interrupted by the beautiful young woman Lucia who confesses she has been watching him for some time , since she fell in love with his first novel . Then, there takes place an enjoyable romance between them . Later on , it happens a distress and Lucia seeks refuge on a quiet , secluded Mediterranean island Formentera -in Majorca Islands- ; there Lucia starts discovering the dark corners of her past . Various lives (Najwa Nimri , Daniel Freire, Paz Vega) converge on an isolated island , all connected by an author whose novel has become inextricably entwined with his own life.

A poetic and complex film , resulting in a little boring and dull story .This is a surprising , mysterious , ravishing and gorgeous picture ; however , it turns out to be tiring . Strange story about peculiar love stories among unsettling and grieving youngsters who suffer distresses and unfortunes . Spanish production with fine acting , colorful cinematography , excellent settings and rousing musical score by Alberto Iglesias . Julio Medem directed the film for Sogetel and producers Enrique López Lavigne , Fernando Bovaira , and it was released in 2001 . Julio Medem likes to disorient , his characters like to challenge each other too . Love and sex are the dual starting points for the entwined script strands of another Julio Medem walk in a world full of sensitivity and pain . There's lots of sex here , exhibicionist , ecstatic , and exuberant giving way to a more damaging hedonism . Although the film itself starts slow and running outwards and backwards , teasing with its secrets .

Exceptional cinematography showing Formentera island , bathed in an atmosphere of fresh air and dazzling sun by Kiko De La Rica . It displays a sensitive and emotive musical score by Alberto Iglesias . The motion picture was originally directed by Julio Medem . This is his most successful film , his first movie was ¨Vacas¨, his second one , "Ardilla Roja" or ¨The red squirrel¨ released in 1993, 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 1998 Medem released " The lovers of the Polar Circle ," considered his best movie by most of his fans . It also became a box-office hit with more than one million spectators in Spain and was also released worldwide. 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 , plenty of nudism and only starred by two gorgeous naked girls . Julio Medem is for sure one of the the most important and original Spanish filmmaker. Rating : 5.5/10 . Well worth watching if you get the chance , thanks to photography and soundtrack , though a little bit boring and slow-paced .