A Review of "Sex and Lucia"

Sex and Lucia, a Spanish film originally titled Lucia y el Sexo was written and directed by Julio Medem, is a beautifully complex film, with some amazing landscapes and even more amazing sex. The film was nominated for ten Goya Awards, the Spanish equivalent of the Academy Awards, winning for Best New Actress -- Paz Vega and for Best Original Score. Tristan Ulloa received a nomination for best actor, while Najwa Nimri and Elena Anaya both received nominations for best supporting actress, Julio Medem was nominated for best director and for best screenplay and the film was nominated for best film.

Now, before we step into the film, strokers please be advised this is not a triple x-rated film with close up penetration shots and cum shots running rampant through the film. The sex shown ranges from a very erotic masturbations scene where the woman remains fully clothed, to some close up manipulation of the actor's cock, to a beautifully surreal water scene where the lovers are shown from underwater as silhouettes against a full moon, to an interesting shot of a woman, fully naked, masturbating while watching an porn video featuring her mother while reflected in the screen is a man watching it all from across the room, along with numerous other scenes.

The film opens with Lucia (Paz Vega) calling home from work talking to her depressed lover. The desperation in his voice worries her and she begs him to say up so they can talk when she gets off work, she talks of taking a vacation, going to the island he so loves. She goes back to work but leaves early telling her boss, "Lorenzo needs me," he replies that he needs a psychiatrist. Lucia arrives to an empty home. Fearing the worst she sees an open window and looks down, expecting to see Lorenzo, but the street is empty. The phone rings and as she answers it she finds a not from him, telling her that all he owns is hers, the phone call is from the police, telling her of bad news, an accident.

Lucia hangs up the phone and packs a few things. As she runs from their home, the phone is ringing again. She travels to the island Lorenzo told her about, the island he always loved to visit. Once on the island, she seems in a daze, a feeling emphasized by the camera work where the brightness of the sun seems to bleed the color out of almost everything. As she walks across a rocky landscape near the sea, the white rocks and a white lighthouse seem to disappear into a haze and she suddenly falls into a hole through the rock. She lands uninjured in a cave that opens out to the sea, but the film cuts away.

Advised it is now six years earlier we see a naked man and woman in the water and as the shot zooms in we see the woman is not Lucia. The man and woman engage in the first of the numerous sex scenes in the movie and though it is shown only in silhouette, it is becomes a highly erotic ballet as their bodies move in the water, coming together and then swimming apart. In a pause in the action, the lovers talk agreeing that they will not tell each other their names, but will share hints as to who they are. The man is from Madrid, the woman Valencia, she is a paella expert, an expert cook and we finally learn that it is the man's birthday. That is all the information they exchange and their water play remains an anonymous affair.

From the two lovers in the water the camera rises to film the full moon, which fades into a small white disk with a plus sign in the middle. The woman just learns she is pregnant, takes a moment to examine her stomach in the mirror and then slips her hand into skirt and masturbates. She tries to call her boyfriend, who is too busy to take her calls, so she advises his secretary she is pregnant but the child is not her boyfriend's. Her message to her boyfriend is that she is off to look for the father of her child, a man who is not in Valencia, but in Madrid.

The scene cuts to a scene in a bar, a man, the same man who spent his birthday making love in the water, is talking to another man about a book deal. We learn he is an author who is just coming out of a two-year writer's block and is working on a book. As he goes to buy a package of cigarettes he meets Lucia, who admits to stalking him. He introduces himself as Lorenzo (Tristan Ulloa) but she already knows from reading his books. The couple talk and Lucia invites Lorenzo back to her apartment. He bids good bye to his friend and goes with Lucia.

This becomes a whirlwind of a romance with some very erotic scenes as the couple decides to move in together. The sex continues with a Polaroid photo shoot and later with a very sexy and humorous striptease. As their relationship grows, the movie begins to get complicated as between some of the scenes of them at home and in public, the film begins to jump forward in time, back to Lucia on the island where she moves into a small villa with a man and a woman. This man and woman live in separate rooms in the villa, but she tells Lucia she has slept with him, but they are not a couple.

As the film progresses, we see Lorenzo at work on his computer working on a story and Lucia sometimes reading the printed portions of his manuscript. A young girl, with light hair, much like both of the lovers in the water is seen on the island, on the rocks where Lucia fell. Later she appears with a nanny in the park and then the nanny and little girl are in a house with the woman from the water, Elena (Najwa Nimri), a man who is now Elena's husband and a large dog.

The movie continues to get more and more complex as Lorenzo learns of his daughter and visits her in the park, where he and the nanny begin to talk. She tells him of being in the couple's home, watching a porn video while masturbating on the couch. The scene cuts to shots of her naked on the couch, the porn video on the TV and standing in the darkness is Elena's husband, watching. Later as the girl continues masturbating she can see his reflection in the TV, that reflection changes and we suddenly see Lorenzo in the reflection.

The nanny convinces the couple to let her new boyfriend spend the night at the house while the couple goes on a weekend get away, leaving their daughter in the nanny's care. When the couple leaves, the nanny and Lorenzo has sex in the couple's bedroom. During most of the scenes at this house there are continual cutaways to Lucia on the island, Lorenzo at his computer and Lucia reading his manuscript.

One of the cutaways features Lucia walking on the beach and discovering the man from the villa completely naked, but covered with mud. He convinces her to join him, so she undresses and allows him to spread the mud over her body. In some very sensual scenes, Lucia writhes as he spreads the mud all over her. In a very odd and somewhat amusing shot the camera moves from the mud being spread over Lucia to a view of his very large cock as it begins to come erect and suddenly some pink skin appears from under the gray mud. My immediate thought was of the statue of David with his cock breaking free of the stone. Of course this man's cock was considerably larger than Michangelo's David's.

The movie's complexity keeps you on the verge of understanding as flashbacks mix with what you think is Lorenzo's fiction and with what you think is the present. Strangely, just as you think you might be figuring something out, another imaginative sex scene distracts you. You see the storyline dip into tragedy but then convince yourself it is fiction from Lorenzo's book, but then the happiness cuts away to a looming danger. When the movie ended, I wasn't actually sure whether I should smile or frown, I wasn't sure if the movie ended happily or Lorenzo's fiction ended happily and the movie ended sadly, or was it the fiction that ended sadly.

Amid the confusion there is some ray of hope because now you have an excellent excuse to go back and watch it again, if just to enjoy the sex scenes once again as you convince yourself you are trying to figure it all out. If you intend to purchase the DVD be sure and get the unrated version, you don't want a single inch of this film removed. The movie is available at Amazon(dot)com. I'll leave you now as I go back and watch the film again, there are still a few details I need to see again.