Erice is back after 31 years with a compelling but somewhat unconvincing work that is part mystery, part love letter to cinema, and a meditation on mortality, old age and the passing of time, as an unresolved case of a missing actor is reopened after many decades.
Review #2,830
Dir. Victor Erice
2023 | Spain, Argentina | Drama | 169 min | 1.66:1 | Spanish & Catalan, with other languages
Not rated – likely to be PG13 for some thematic material
Cast: Manolo Solo, Jose Coronado, Ana Torrent, Petra Martínez, María Leon
Plot: Years after his mysterious disappearance, Julio Arenas, a famous Spanish actor, is back in the news thanks to a television program.
Awards: Official Selection (Cannes)
International Sales: Film Factory
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Unresolved Mystery; Time & Mortality; Cinema & Memory
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: General Arthouse
Viewed: Screener
Spoilers: No
31 years separate Close Your Eyes and Victor Erice’s last feature, The Quince Tree Sun (1992), so it would be an understatement to say that the Spanish director was extremely aggrieved that his film wasn’t selected for the Cannes Main Competition, but was presented instead in the Premiere sidebar.
This led to a public dispute between him and festival boss Thierry Fremaux. Maybe Fremaux saw something lacking in the film that many others didn’t.
I found it compelling but ultimately somewhat unconvincing, though it is still a work of merit by any standards. Running close to three hours, Close Your Eyes would have benefited from a tighter cut, not of pace but storytelling.
In fact, the measured pacing is in the film’s favour as we immerse ourselves in its multiple layers, beginning with a mysterious prologue set in the past before moving to the present day where much of the narrative is situated.
“Who could’ve imagined what was about to happen to him?”
A famous actor disappears before completing a film decades ago; that incomplete picture’s director, now in his silver years, is invited to speak on a television show about unresolved cases, rekindling his curiosity over his missing friend’s fate.
Part mystery, part love letter to cinema, and a meditation on mortality, old age and the passing of time, Erice, who is now 84, gives us an opus that promises—and thus builds to—a cumulation of feelings and thoughts that are best left unsaid and deeply experienced.
I have to admit whatever transcendent impact Close Your Eyes has had on other viewers largely eluded me. For one, I could smell its epilogue from a mile away and can’t quite ‘close my eyes’ to let it wash over me.
Having said that, I think Erice’s work, best described as a mix of Almodovar-esque intrigue and the novelistic side of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, should still interest art cinema enthusiasts.
Grade: B
Trailer:
Eternality Tan 
Yes, a pretty fair review, imo. Thank you.
I sat through it but I looked at the clock quite a few times. I was relieved when the end eventually came; I suppose it was intended to leave the viewer with the question of what memory really is – rather than whether the character’s memories returned or not – but by that point I wasn’t really interested any more. Stories benefit from a surprise or two, and some character development, whereas this script seemed to me to merely doddle along.
Good acting, though. But a week later it’s almost forgotten, which is a pity.
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Didn’t regret seeing it, but it felt a bit too safe and predictable. Consequential for the characters but not for us I guess
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Yes, exactly. Also didn’t regret spending time with it.
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