Average Rating: 
Rating:  - "lighthouses + holes = sex" and other freudian exercises
Another hit for Medem! This movie is excellent. It effectively captures writing and life through the experiences of Lorenzo - a young novelist- who struggles, loses, falls and finally recuperates himself after a psychological battle with himself through love and Lucia. Writing- as well as sex- seems to represent a process that parallels that of falling in love and then falling. The cinematography is superb: the darkness of the lustful, cheating scene filled with its often surreal imagery of the grotesque is clearly juxtaposed with that of the final sequence in the island where light filters through every object indicating the healing process that is occurring both literally with Lorenzo and emotionally in his relationship with Lucia. The plot itself is again obscured and revealed through plot twists that make us understand more clearly not only how these characters are intertwined, but also the depths of the often contradicting emotions of love where we learn we often hurt those that are closest to us. There are some very sexy moments, but unlike many critics, I do not think this is a "romantic" or sexually based movie. Sex is intrinsically part of the film -as the title suggest-, but we are also shown the flip side of sex which is, in the end, the life of the person of Lucia. See this movie for the acting, dialogue and especially for the creative way that the movie combines writing, filmmaking, sex and life.
Rating:  - Would have been good, except...
Sex and Lucia is one-half moving psychological probe into a romance, and one-half attention-deficit cinematic showoff.The two leads do a very good job in this film. Paz Vega (Lucia), who looks like a warmer, more resilient Winona Ryder, has an expressive face and also dives into the very explicit sex scenes bravely. The chemistry between her and Tristan Ulloa, as lover Lorenzo, provides the film's emotional center. And the photography is beautiful and expressive, working hand in hand with the music to create a lovely mood against which the romance can play out. A shame, then, that the editing pretty much destroys many key scenes. Director Julio Medem seems especially fond of hyperspeed cutting and senseless jump cuts. During Lucia and Lorenzo's first love scene, the lovely delicacy of the actors' physical behaviour is simply destroyed by all the intrusive fast cuts, dehumanizing the actors into a series of film blips. In fact, the fast cutting gave me a bad case of eye fatigue -- like a death-metal soundtrack intruding in on a romantic film. And that's not the only time -- the striptease scene (where Ulloa and Vega's performances are especially endearing) and Lucia's humiliating, disturbing masturbation scene are both badly cut. The film is also a little too long for my taste and at a certain point, the high-mindedness of the lovely music and cinematography did become tiring, losing some of the intimacy in favour of heavy-handed poeticizing.
Rating: - Rewarding all the Senses
SEX AND LUCIA is a wonder. Not since the amazing films of Alain Renais has there been a film so emersed in physical beauty, in bewildering undertones, in challenging paths for the viewer to let go of the world as we see it and discover places and feelings once the sole territory of the Surrealists. This magical movie resembles Renais' LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD but it is in color, is much more advanced in its sexuality, and fleshes out its story with more profound philosophical views. The cast is very fine without focusing on well known actors (in this country at least) to provide a prejudged concept of the characters examined. The women and men are beautiful, senusous, and vulnerable. And aside from the dual presentation of a love and passion tale, this movie addresses our perception of memory, of passion altering how we walk through life, and of the consequences of the decisions we make. A stunning film.
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