Julio Medem and the Poetics of Commitment

Abstract

Basque film director Julio Medem combines in his films the highbrow aesthetics most commonly associated with the cinéma d’auteur and a commmitment to the uneasy expression of a constantly reinterpreted historical subjectivity. Through an analysis of thematic and ideological motives in Los amantes del Círculo Polar (Lovers of the Artic Circle, 1998), using a combination of aesthetic and sociological viewpoints, it is posited that Medem’s oeuvre, rather than conforming to the traditional separation of high and low art, suggests a poetics of commitment which is predicated precisely on the overcoming of that duality.