Fermer les yeux

The title of the movie has to refer to what happens to you when you watch it. Jokes aside it's the first time I fall asleep in the cinema while watching a movie. The seats weren't tall enough so I couldn't rest my head and I was constantly falling asleep in the void and then instantly waking ip. That was going on for the last 45 minutes of the film. Has to be the slower movie I've ever watched. I was waiting for a climax or something to compensate me but it wasn't there. Nothing ever happened. Everything stays unanswered which is not bad by itself but in this case some answers would be the least.

I really don't know what the point of this movie is. The story is soooooo very very very (did I say very already) very slow. I've read it got a 7 min standing ovation but I really don't see why. Probably out of respect for the director It's a movie about growing old and certain aspects of it but it doesn't really go deep. Basically it's just alot of talking without getting beneath the surface. Certainly the first hour is just difficult to get through. I almost gave it up but I stuck through. Not gladly must I add but it gets a little bit better. Dare I say it's the directors age that made this story at least an hour to long... closing off with something good. The acting was quite decent.

We begin by watching a ten minute excerpt from a drama that shortly afterwards discover is just about all there is from the final film of acclaimed Spanish actor "Julio Arenas". He finished filming for the day then was never seen nor heard from again. Many years later, a television journalist "Soriano" (Helena Miquel) invites the film's director "Garay" (Manolo Solo) onto her missing persons television programme with a view to finding out just what happened to him. In best "Crimewatch" style, someone calls into the programme with a possible lead. Might they have found this man after all these years? On the face of it, the story is all a bit predictable. It's the quality of the acting and the writing that puts the meat on the bones, and both Solo and the Jose Coronoado as handyman "Gardel" deliver engagingly well. It is a slow burn of a film, with an emphasis split between the search for the actor and the search of "Garay" for some degree of closure so he can get on with his life rather listlessly spent reading, drinking, smoking and fishing with the fellow residents of his squat. Fans of "Rio Bravo" (1959) might recognise the song he sings with neighbours "Toni" (Dani Téllez) and his expectant wife, and those few moments of the film demonstrate nicely the emotions of friendship, emotion and loneliness director Victor Erice wants to convey for just about all of the principal characters. The conclusion in inconclusive, but it does make you pine a little for the days where even the smallest of towns had it's own cinema. I wonder if anyone should ever make the underpinning movie? This is worth watching.

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.

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.