Close Your Eyes: The Introspective Journey to Cinema by Víctor Erice

31 years ago, Spanish filmmaker Víctor Erice did not release a feature-length fiction film. It was in 1992 when he presented the documentary portrait of the painter Antonio López in "El sol del membrillo" at Cannes, which ended up winning the Jury Prize.

Three decades later, he returned to the festival with his new film "Cerrar los ojos" (Close Your Eyes), which was exhibited in the "Cannes Premiere" section. But what motivated him to direct this new feature? What happened to Erice all this time?

Throughout these years, Víctor Erice has continued writing, as he himself says, out of sheer necessity. In that sense, he has written scripts for some short films, as well as for theater. He has narrated and produced other short films, and he collaborated with the late Abbas Kiarostami on the installation and documentary "Víctor Erice - Abbas Kiarostami: Correspondence" (2007).

The director says that this new story, in the form of a portrait, captivated the festival attendees to the point of asserting that it may be a contemporary classic. His film explores two intimately related themes: identity and memory, focusing on the memories of two friends who were once a director and an actor. One of them has completely lost his memory. Interestingly and paradoxically, the other is doing his best to forget, but the past and pain continue to haunt him.

Spanish actor José Coronado plays Julio Arenas, a famous actor who disappears just as a film is being shot. After a search, the police conclude that he must have disappeared at sea. Several years later, the mystery surrounding his disappearance becomes news again when a television program revives his figure, his career, and his supposed death, along with exclusive, unseen footage of the last scenes he filmed with his dear friend, director Miguel Garay, portrayed by Manolo Solo.

Part of this fictional story has been inspired by the author's own experiences and acquaintances, while the other part is imagined. "Given that I have worked on the script of all my films, one might think that the theme is related to my concerns or vital interests, those of a poetics where the experience of cinema takes on a leading role. In this sense, 'Cerrar los ojos' will bring together two different styles: that of classical cinema, with its illusory canon, in settings and characters; and another style, laden with reality, which modern cinema has unfolded, or in other words, two kinds of narrative: one that emerged under the protection of legend, telling life not as it was but as it should have been; and another, adrift, contemporary, without certain memory or future." This production reunites Erice with Ana Torrent, who starred in his film "El espíritu de la colmena" (The Spirit of the Beehive) 50 years ago, which won the Best Film award at the 1973 San Sebastián Film Festival.

The British Film Institute highlighted that Erice's film is "a film made by and about true believers in the transcendent potential of sound and image." Meanwhile, The Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw has stated that "Cerrar los ojos" is a "mysterious film that possesses distinctive richness and humanity, developed around the balance between memory and forgetting that we all negotiate as we reach the end of our lives. And it is also about cinema, which helps promote memory and recover what has faded away, even though it itself is in danger of being forgotten. 'Close Your Eyes' could even be an ironic commentary on Erice's own absence these past 30 years."

The feature film will be released in Spanish cinemas starting from September 29, and its international sales are being handled by Film Factory.

<< Go to Spanish version