Cerrar los ojos

I was watching something on T. V. one day and came across a commercial starring Ryan Reynolds. I was struck by how OLD he looked in it. Not bad, just old, compared to the Ryan Reynolds who started his career on "Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place." Ryan is around my age; in fact, he might even be a little younger. I turned to my wife and asked, "God, do WE look that old?" The answer is probably "yes," but the difference is that my wife and I don't have constant reminders of what our younger selves looked like thrown in our faces every day. At the very same time that the Ryan Reynolds commercial was airing, "Blade: Trinity" was on a different station.

That experience got me thinking a lot about how movies and the actors in them capture moments in time and make possible a weird kind of time travel. You can watch Nicole Kidman in "Far and Away" and then immediately hop over to "Babygirl" and literally see the passage of years in her face.

This is just one of the ideas explored in "Close Your Eyes," an evocative slow burn of a movie about aging in general, and aging as an artist specifically. Manolo Solo is my pick for best actor of the year for his performance as Miguel Garay, a former movie director and author who is trying to track down his friend Julio Arenas, an actor who starred in one of Garay's films but disappeared without a trace before the film could be finished. The film turns into a kind of quiet detective story as Garay tracks Julio down through mutual acquaintances, clues left behind, etc. The film is as much about Garay's own psychology as it is about what happened to Julio. Actually, the film is about lots of things, but it's not obviously about any one thing. It's a lot about coming to terms with getting older and saying goodbye to things that you won't ever have again, something that resonates with me very much right now in my life, having just turned 50. But it's not a downer. It's as much about realizing how much there is to enjoy in the later part of life as there is to miss.

You've gotta have patience with this one, as it's slow and ruminative. It's like reading a character-driven novel. It also happens to be one of the best movies released in 2024.

Grade: A.

For someone who is over 80, Victor Erice provides, while very slow-burn story, a memorizing and symbolic story with beautiful camerawork, strong direction, great performances and emotional cores developed throughout. Erice previous works on "El Sur" and "The Spirit of the Beehive" are some of the best Spanish movies of all time as Erice is great with slow-burn cinema. Dream of Light was also pretty good and after many years, Erice still is able to conduct and interesting project.

Throughout, the run-time can be a big turn off but the narrative and themes that are explored within the setting were interesting as emotional and interesting themes were well-explored within the characters and setting as the themes were able to help create an emotional balance and vision of the setting. Many of the camerawork shots, sound designs and color presentation was pretty good. All of the performances are pretty great with good dialogue and realism portrayed throughout.

Erice's direction was perfect as his takes on the themes of memories and losses were handled well and the emotional core helped create a sense of dream-like and symbolic feel throughout. With the run-time being 169 minutes, I do feel that some aspects were dragged a bit too long and there were certain moments that made me test my patiences a little.

Overall, this is a movie that requires patience but it is very good to see Erice making another film and definitely something I would check out again for a second time.

I loved this film, the direction of the actors, the pacing and how natural it felt. I watched it over two nights - it's a long film but I was completely involved in the story. All of the characters contributed to the effectiveness of the film and added depth. Nothing felt shallow or forced. The central mystery made me want to watch to the end and discover what had happened to him all those years ago. It's a love letter to film making too and the power of film to affect us and stay in our memory, and how it can change our lives. I'm surprised to read the negative reviews. A brilliant ending, too.

Victor Erice, a legend in Spanish cinema who hasn't made a new film since 1992 and could achieve a legendary status with only three films, presents his latest work. Reminiscent of his symbolic narrative in 'The Spirit of the Beehive' (1973), where he criticized the Spanish Civil War era, Erice's new film explores the traces of an unfinished project due to the mysterious disappearance of its lead actor years ago. 'Close Your Eyes' draws parallels between the director character in the film and Erice himself, suggesting autobiographical elements, especially considering that Erice wrote the screenplay. After 30 years, Erice returns to filmmaking to convey his message, offering a critique of the Spanish society manipulated during the Franco dictatorship.

While the film starts with a deliberately slow pace, it proves worthwhile towards the end. I realized that nothing in the film is unnecessary; everything has a meaning, sometimes subtle, sometimes profound, but meaningful nonetheless.

This late work is the first I've seen by Spanish auteur Victor Erice. (Yes, fellow cineasts, I have reached the age of 48 without EVER watching "Spirit of the Beehive". I know this is deeply sinful and plan to rectify it by- not kidding- the end of the day on which I am writing this review!) From what I have read about Erice's earlier, major works his films usually concern childhood, and tend to be fairly short in duration- under 2 hours. Related to those earlier films, "Close Your Eyes" would seem to be a departure for the 84 year old writer-director. It is almost 3 hours long, and it is concerned with the theme and rhythms of old age.

"Pensive" and "patient" are the two adjectives I would use to describe the film's mood, at least for its first two acts. This is, indeed, a film in 3 acts, and not in the insipid sense meant by Hollywood scribes. The three sections of the narrative, each in a different setting with largely different supporting characters besides the lead, 70-something writer Miguel Garay- played, well, pensively and patiently by Manolo Solo, feel like three different films about the same character.

The cliche about old age is that one realizes how short life is, and even a middle-aged person can attest to a level of truth in this. Less discussed or described is the change in the moment to moment temporality as one gets older, the appreciation and savoring of moments that have come to seem more finite. Erice and his team convey that beautifully in the first two acts, particularly the second which basks in an understated contentedness that cannot last even in the sphere of lived time.

In the first act, two elderly friends discuss the "challenge of old age" and one character defines it as living "fearlessly and without hope". The final section of the film, the one with the closest thing to a conventional story-line, perhaps only lives up to the first half of the first act's declaration. It is filled with an elderly artist's final declaration of devotion to their medium- the cinema- in which the artist maintains a faith in an ability to attest, reveal, and perhaps even heal.

On a personal note, the cinema has been as close as I've had to a religious force in my very atheistic life. Perhaps when/ if I approach Erice's age I will feel a need for such declarations of devotion. As the almost 50 year old who watched "Close Your Eyes", however, I could have done without the metaphysics lesson.