FAST AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM SAN SEBASTIÁN
bmost remembered for the classic The spirit of the hive (1973), the Spanish director Víctor Erice presents only his fourth feature film at the age of 82. The South in 1983 and The quince sun in 1992. He also made an experimental documentary with the late Abbas Kiarostami in 2006, titled Erice – Kiarostami: Correspondence. While Erice may not be remembered for his prolificacy as a director, his meditative tone and exquisite visual style remain immediately recognizable.. Close your eyes will not disappoint either old fans or younger film buffs unfamiliar with his work.
This extremely long (169 minutes) and slow-burning psychological drama begins in the 1990s, when film director Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo) makes a film titled Sad Roy. In the movie within the movie, a French king tasks a Spanish leftist with finding his missing half-Chinese daughter; a relatively unknown actor named Julio Arenas (José Coronado) is at the helm. Miguel and Julio are old friends who share a past in the navy and also in prison. That was only Miguel's second film and Julio's last, since the actor disappeared shortly after. Fast forward 20 years. Miguel has not made any more films since then and the mystery of Julio's disappearance remains unsolved. The metafictional element seems to extend to the octogenarian director of Close your eyeswho also took a decades-long break from the film world.
A television program decides to investigate and investigate the peculiar case, conducting intrusive interviews with Miguel and other people who knew Julio. Some believe the man committed suicide, others think he was murdered, and someone speculates that he may be fleeing from a jealous cuckold (the charming man seemed to have a penchant for womanizing). Julio left behind a daughter, a shy woman with very sad eyes named Ana (Ana Torrent). The problem is that Ana barely remembers her father because he was very absent throughout her life. The only gift she gave to her daughter was through Santa Claus. Her shaky emotional attachment and unreliable memories of her are only partially useful in this informal investigation.
Closing your eyes is a deeply subversive gesture. It allows us to recreate the reality that is in front of our eyes according to our own will and convenience. It allows our imagination to bend orthodoxies, degrade memories and reconstruct images. This effortless gesture (even people in a vegetative state can perform it) empowers and conveys decision making to those who really matter (the individual in charge). If you don't want to see something, just let your eyelids gently collapse. In one of the most crucial scenes of the film, Ana chooses to close her eyes. Erice does not illustrate her character's imagination, leaving viewers to speculate whether it was fear or hope that prevailed in her reality with her eyes wide closed.
A very unexpected twist in the last third of the film takes the story in a completely new direction. Cinema, memories and the ability to recognize become equally deceptive. A magnificent closing that celebrates and deconstructs at the same time the act of going to the movies. And a ray of hope in an otherwise bleak story of loss and pain.
Close your eyes has just premiered in the Donostia Award Screenings section of the 71st San Sebastián International Film Festival. A must see. By the way, Erice was born in the Basque Country (the region of Spain where the Festival takes place), but moved to Madrid at the age of 17 (where he still lives).
