Close Your Eyes
Spain’s celebrated Víctor Erice breaks his 31-year silence to deliver another triumphant work.
Manolo Solo and Ana Torrent
Víctor Erice’s position in world cinema is surely close to being unique. Born in 1940, the Spanish filmmaker has acquired an assured standing as a major talent despite the fact that this new film of his is only his fourth big feature. The first was 1973’s The Spirit of the Beehive which was rapturously received and is now revered as a classic of Spanish cinema, another drama, El Sur (The South), followed in 1983 and then a decade later came the minimalistic documentary The Quince Tree Sun (1992). The nearest parallel may well be with Jean Vigo who made only two substantial works, Zéro de Conduite and L’Atalante, but he died before reaching thirty whereas Erice now gives us Close Your Eyes at the age of 82. Like its three famous predecessors this film too is an award winner.
Although not designated as such, Close Your Eyes, which last for 169 minutes, is in effect a film in two parts. The first pivots on the disappearance of an actor named Julio Arenas (José Coronado) in circumstances that have remained mysterious. He had been acting in a film set in France working for a director who was an old friend of his, Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo), and the project had been halted since at that stage only part of the film had been shot. That had happened in 1990 and Close Your Eyes begins with a completed segment of that film entitled The Farewell Gaze which had shown Julio playing a Spaniard hired by an elderly Jewish landowner (Josep Maria Pou) to go to Shanghai and to bring back the daughter he longs to see once more whose mother had been Chinese.
After some fifteen minutes or so a fade to black is followed by a narrative set in Madrid in 2012. Garay had given up working in film and had tried his hand as a writer – a novel had been published but now he is semi-retired only occasionally working on some short story. His circumstances are such that he is happy to earn some money by contributing to the latest edition of a popular TV programme which is set to feature the unsolved disappearance: did Julio Arenas commit suicide or accidentally fall from the cliff-top where his shoes had been found? Or, since his body was never washed up, could it be that he staged his own death and is still alive?
The woman handling the TV programme and interviewing Miguel for it is the efficient Marta Soriano (Helena Miquel) and she asks him to contact Julio's daughter, Ana (Ana Torrent), to see if she is willing to participate. In fact, she rejects the idea but this fresh emphasis on Julio's fate leads Miguel to make contact with a woman from Buenos Aires named Lola (Soledad Villamil) who had one been his lover before moving on to Julio. In addition, Miguel visits an old colleague who had been the editor on The Farewell Gaze. This is Max (Mario Pardo) also now retired but an enthusiast for the cinema of old who has a vast collection of film reels including some additional footage that had been shot for The Farewell Gaze before filming had been abandoned.
The material on offer here is unusually rich both in itself and in the treatment of it. While it is clear that Erice has lost none of his skills, somebody else whose contribution is vital here is the casting director, Pilar Moya. Few films make one feel so strongly that the players chosen are ideal for their roles. That starts here with Josep Maria Pou even though he appears only in the footage that represents the film made by Miguel Garay. But as Close Your Eyes goes on it applies no less to Solo, Coronado, Pardo, Villamil and Miquel while the impact of players such as Dani Téllez, Petra Martínez and María Léon who only appear in the second half of the film is just as striking. Furthermore, although her role is relatively short, there is a special pleasure in the wonderfully astute contribution by Ana Torrent since as a child actress she was immortalised by her contribution to Erice’s The Spirit of the Beehive.
But, however significant the choice of players, Close Your Eyes is also memorable for the quality of the writing. In the first part we are intrigued by the mystery surrounding what happened to Julio and fascinated by the question of what the man had really been like (it is notable that the portrait of him painted by Miguel in his TV interview is quite different from how he talks of him in private). But, over and above that, this is a film about people looking back on their younger selves, their past relationships, their earlier hopes and the various ways in which their lives, fulfilled or not, have led to where they are now. This is done with absolute conviction, without any touch of sentimentality and with a sense of universality (in passing that means that one is free to ponder on the extent to which Víctor Erice is incorporating elements that reflect his own life and experiences). No scene in Close Your Eyes is more memorable than the one in which Miguel and Lola meet and share their memories of each other and of Julio and reflect on their lives.
What I have described as the first part of the film builds up to the screening of the TV programme. After that the film slightly hangs fire as we follow Miguel to his home by the coast, but it is here that Téllez makes his appearance and there is an unexpected homage to Howard Hawks by way of a rendering of the song ‘My Rifle, My Pony and Me’ from the 1959 film Rio Bravo. We then move on to the second part and this is concerned with what happens when an employee (Léon) working in a care home declares that having seen the TV programme she believes that an amnesiac who lives there is indeed Julio Arenas. This half of the film could be seen as more optimistic in tone as we find out whether or not this identification is correct and where it could lead. However, by comparison with the film’s first half the material is not quite so rewarding even if it does bring us back to more footage from The Farewell Gaze which again conveys splendidly Erice’s deep love of cinema. Even that film, of which we now see the conclusion, is dealing with issues of old age and making peace with the past albeit that its tone is dangerously close to melodrama while the conclusion of Close Your Eyes is far more subtle and memorable. I am left with the impression that the second half, acceptable though it is, fails to measure up fully to the quite outstanding quality of what has gone before. Nevertheless, Close Your Eyes is a late triumph for Erice that supports his reputation and it would be splendid if it proved not to be his final feature.
Original title: Cerrar los ojos.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Manolo Solo, José Coronado, Ana Torrent, Petra Martínez, María León, Mario Pardo, Helena Miquel, Josep Maria Pou, Soledad Villamil, Juan Margallo, Dani Téllez, Rocío Molina, Ana María, Kao Chenmin, Venecia Franco.
Dir Víctor Erice, Pro Cristina Zumárraga, Agustin Bossi, Víctor Erice, Odile Antonio-Baez, Pablo Bossi, José Alba, Pol Bossi and Maximiliano Lasansky, Screenplay Víctor Erice and Michel Gaztambide, from a story by Víctor Erice, Ph Valentin Álvarez, Art Dir Curru Garabal, Ed Ascen Marchena, Music Federico Jusid, Costumes Helena Sanchis.
La mirada del adíos/Tandem Films/Nautilus Films/Pecado Films/Pampa Films-NewWave Films.
169 mins. Spain/Argentina. 2023. UK Rel: 12 April 2024. Cert. 12A.