Spanish filmmaking great Victor Erice hasn’t made a movie in 31 years. His debut, 1973’s The Spirit of the Beehive, is widely considered to be one of the best films in Spanish film history, so his absence has been keenly felt by audiences, cinephiles and fellow filmmakers alike. His return to the big screen with Close Your Eyes felt like A Big Deal at this year’s Cannes.
Elegantly mysterious, the film’s jumping off point is the disappearance of actor Julio Arenas (José Coronado) from the set of The Farewell Gaze, having completed only two scenes, the first and the last. His friend and director of the film, Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo), has since abandoned cinema and semi-retired to a beachside hut where he keeps a low-profile and survives on translations. But being interviewed on an episode about Julio’s disappearance makes memories resurface, that of their friendship, their work together, and all together more painful ones.
As Miguel – or Mike, as he’s sometimes called – delves deeper into his abandoned project and his memories of who he once was, Close Your Eyes unfolds its exploration of memory, identity and their intersection with cinema. Miguel has made it his business to forget painful elements of his past, and the film gently guides him to remembering himself fully and deeply by sending him on the hunt for his lost friend.
A less eloquent filmmaker would’ve delivered yet another ‘love letter to cinemas’ piece, but Erice’s work operates on a whole different level, he does not rush. Close Your Eyes builds up slowly, deliberately, allowing ample breathing room to supporting characters who were, once at least, elemental in Miguel or Julio’s lives so we can paint a picture of who they are as artists and as people.
Close Your Eyes felt like A Big Deal at this year’s Cannes
Erice obliquely addresses his own filmmaking hiatus by exploring other disappearances of its own – in its film-within-a-film, a rich Spanish-Jewish refugee hires a man (played by Julio) to find his lost daughter – and pondering why Miguel never attempted to make another film. And of course, the mysterious fate of Julio is never far from the surface.
And neither is Erice’s mastery: the final scene, set in an old movie theatre, is little short of transcendent.
In UK cinemas Apr 12.