'Close Your Eyes' is an Eyeopening Look Into The Need for Cinema
The disappearance of one affects the lives of many others. Victor Erice's Close Your Eyes is a meditative exercise in the power of cinema and the meaning of our lives. It's a deep film that moves intentionally slow so we can get the feeling of what one's loss means to others. The film isn't perfect. It meanders around in its middle act, which goes nowhere until it picks up again in its final hour. But when the film does pick up, it reaches existential values that warrant its length, even if it could have been trimmed down a bit.
The movie starts with a bit of misdirection. We're transported to 1947 Tristee Roy, in the surroundings of Paris. Mr. Levy (Josep Maria Pou), A man of high power, assigns Monsieur Franch (José Coronado) to find his missing daughter. She has moved to China under a different name in an attempt to hide from her father. Levy is dying. His final wish is to see his daughter once more before he passes. Levy chose Franch because he liberated Jews from a concentration camp, leading them to the Pyrenees Mountains. Although not a professional, Franch's heroic experience from the war makes him a suitable candidate to find the girl. Reluctantly, Franch agrees, departing Levy's mansion. As he walks away, a narrator informs us that we've just watched a scene from a movie. Monsieur Franch is actually an actor named Julio Arenas. He's been missing since the filming of the scene we just saw. The year was 1990.
Flash forward to 2012. We follow our story's protagonist, Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo). Miguel visits the office of Unresolved Cases. He shows the investigator footage from the scene we last saw. It turns out that scene wasn't just some random scene from a movie Julio was in, but it's actually the last scene Julio filmed. In the next scene, we find out that Miguel is not in an investigative office but rather an investigative television program's office. Miguel intends to release the footage of the unfinished film to the public as a means of hoping to track down Julio. Miguel is interviewed in a television studio, where he provides details for the case. On the show, Miguel is asked if Julio Arenas had suicidal tendencies or ideations of running away. With a great deal of pause, Miguel answers that he didn't see anything different in Julio's actions that would warrant why he disappeared. As we later find out in the picture, he's not being entirely honest.
Shortly afterward, Miguel reconnects with Julio's daughter, Ana (Ana Torrent). Ana reveals that Julio was a distant father. He never drove her to school and only once bought her a gift. Despite his negligence, Ana wants to reconvene with her father if he's alive. Miguel then connects with an old friend of his, Lola San Román (Soledad Villamil). Through Lola, we get a much clearer picture of who Julio was. Julio was a heavy drinker. He would go on binges that would leave him incapacitated. Despite his flaws, Miguel made a pact with Julio to stop drinking. But it didn't last long. Julio fell back on the wagon, resulting in what may have led to his disappearance.
For a while, I wondered where the film was going. I figured at a certain point Miguel would find Julio, but there's much more to the film than that. The two don't just reconnect in the end with a solum, tearful hug as the film cuts to black. Julio is a shell of his former self. Without giving much away, the film evades a predictable happy ending. It's much deeper than that. It's about how cinema keeps artists alive. After not finishing his film, The Farewell Gaze, because of Julio's disappearance, Miguel stopped making movies. He spent the remainder of his life writing books and short stories while living in a trailer. I understand that the loss of a friend can be tremendous. But could Julio have moved on? Also, his so-called unfinished film doesn't seem so incomplete when we see the dailies. Miguel seems to be a man who might care too much for other people. Miguel's flaw is that his love for Julio bankrupted his artistic spirit. Sure, he wrote, but writing didn't make him feel as fulfilled as directing.
When we see Miguel in the middle act of the movie, its structure meanders with a scene where Miguel sings a full song in English on the guitar with his friends. We get an idea of what Miguel's life is like when he gets home through the scene, but it could have been communicated more effectively by trimming it down. I get it; it's slow cinema. I like slow cinema. But I'm not too fond of it when it keeps rolling, a scene for the sake of filling up time. Fortunately, most of the film doesn't feel like that.
Regardless of the rocky mid-portion, the third act is the real bread and butter of the film. It shows how Miguel and Julio didn't fulfill the lives they wished they could have had because they left cinema. It's a testament to what art means to people. It's like the meme from Cinema Paradiso when Alfredo tells young Salvatore Di Vita, "Don't give into nostalgia. Forget about us" as they bid farewell. By leaving film, Miguel gave into the past. He let fear get the best of him, preventing him from being the man he could have been. It relates to how many of us wind up empty in our lives. By cutting ourselves loose from our passion, we lose a part of ourselves. We fall into our comfort zones, afraid to make the jump. It's where most of us wind up. Miguel and Julio's passion for film is what leads to a melancholic narrative that is a reflection of what we have missing in our lives.
Close Your Eyes screened at the 76th Cannes Film Festival as part of its premiere section. It will be playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, IL on August 23rd
