Victor Erice’s “Close Your Eyes” is deeply personal

Victor Erice’s fourth feature is a moving tale of memory, identity and friendship, and it feels deeply, almost alarmingly, personal.
Photo: Manolo Pavón

This review was originally published on May 25, 2023, on the occasion of the Cannes Film Festival. We are now circulating it again at the scheduled time. Close your eyestheatrical release.

Before Cannes, Spanish director Victor Erice had made only three feature films in a career spanning more than fifty years. They are three of the greatest films ever made. The spirit of the hive (1973) is one of the most beloved treasures of Spanish cinema. The South (1983) had its production cut short and is therefore considered a kind of cursed moviebut in my eyes it’s even better than The spirit of the hive. And his 1992 documentary, Dream of lightwhich won the Jury Prize at Cannes that year, is one of the most fascinating meditations on the elusive nature of art that anyone has ever made, anywhere.

It was 31 years ago, and the premiere of a new feature film by Erice, now 82, a three-hour drama called Close your eyes (Close Your Eyes) was one of the biggest news stories in this year’s Cannes lineup. The director, however, was not in attendance for his film’s premiere at the festival on Tuesday. Some suggested it was because he was too ill to make the trip, while others speculated that after so many years away from the spotlight, he had adopted a Terrence Malick-like reticence. (It’s worth noting, however, that Erice has continued to direct short films and produce other works over the years; he also served on the Cannes jury in 2010.)

Two days ago, Erice published an editorial in the Spanish newspaper The Country It turns out he was just pissed. The director’s first feature in 31 years was screening out of competition, a fact Erice apparently only learned at the press conference announcing this year’s lineup. At Cannes, it’s generally accepted that the main competition is where the best films are screened, though in truth the negotiations over who gets to compete and who doesn’t are often filled with petty politics and bullshit. (For example, you’re clearly guaranteed a spot in competition if your film stars or is directed by Sean Penn.)

To be clear, Erice wasn’t upset that he wasn’t in competition. He felt slighted by the way the festival communicated with him, keeping him in the dark about its intentions. This is important because other festivals—including Venice and the Directors’ Fortnight, which has in the past premiered many major films by major directors—had offered Erice prime slots. These other venues were all effectively shortchanged by Cannes’ failure to communicate properly with the filmmaker.

The good news is that one day all this nonsense will be forgotten but Close your eyes will remain. Erice’s fourth feature is a moving tale of memory, identity and friendship, and it feels deeply, almost alarmingly, personal. It opens with tantalising footage of what turns out to be an abandoned project called The Farewell Look. This film, we learn, was left unfinished when its lead actor, Julio Arenas (José Coronado), disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving the film and his entire life behind, never to be heard from again. The director, Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo), never shot another film. In fact, he now lives outside the system, in a trailer on the beach, growing his own tomatoes and catching fish. A televised investigation into Julio’s disappearance brings Miguel (who sometimes likes to be called “Mike”) back into the world, and he begins to wonder what happened back then.

There is enough mystery in Close your eyes that it makes sense to keep the rest of the story under wraps for now. The film unfolds in stylistically distinct movements. That opening scene, with its lush imagery of footage supposedly shot long ago, even seems like it could have been part of an actual movie called The Spell of Shanghai which Erice spent three years preparing in the late 1990s, only to see it collapse. Some have speculated that this makes it East footage shot by Erice for this project, but production appears to have been shut down long before cameras started rolling.

Erice, however, remains shaken by this experience, and it is clear that he recognizes a lot of himself in Miguel, an artist who has withdrawn from the world. At one point, Miguel visits his old projectionist friend Max (Mario Pardo), who has a large, dusty archive full of film reels. Max talks about how 90 percent of the history of cinema still exists only in film form, even though almost no one projects more than 35mm. There is a sense throughout the film that Close your eyes Everything Miguel knows is being taken away from him. The almost idyllic, austere seaside mansion where he lives is about to be sold, which means he will have to leave. Julio may have withdrawn from the world years ago—either by dying or by moving away—but now, as his own world slips away from him, Miguel understands something about disappearance.

Close your eyes The film moves quickly in a very deliberate and matter-of-fact pace, built initially around two-person dialogue scenes. The director even seems to be toying with the viewer’s patience here, with each scene ending on an almost excruciatingly long fade to black. (I’ve certainly heard complaints.) But the almost bland textures of this section feel relevant to the project as a whole, as Erice establishes a stark contrast between the magical world of imaginary cinema and the humdrum nature of basic reality.

Close your eyes It’s also about cinema, but not in the way we’ve become accustomed to in recent years. It’s not a love letter or a poisoned missive, but rather an exploration of cinema as memory and the relative value of that memory. It’s a film made by a man who hasn’t been able to make the films he’s wanted to make for decades. You feel his frustration and regret in every frame, but you also sense a kind of acceptance. At one point, Miguel types a statement on a keyboard about an artist who decided that his masterpiece would not be his work, but his life. Is this an ambitious or desperate thought?

The final part of the film asks, in a fascinating and unbearably touching way, what really makes a life. Is it memory and identity, the cumulative power of all our experiences, the knowledge of our friends and family? Or is it simply the ability to be happy and present? The opening scenes of this long-abandoned film show a man talking about how often his name has changed over the years and lamenting the fact that his estranged half-Chinese daughter was given a different name by her mother. In this film, everyone’s name seems to undergo multiple changes. What’s in a name? Why does our identity matter in the grand scheme of things?

As Miguel’s quest continues, one may begin to wonder whether he is really looking for Julio or for himself. The man in the unfinished film longs for one last look from his daughter—that “farewell look” of the title—before he dies. Miguel needs Julio’s memory more than Julio needs his own. It is in the gaze of others that we know ourselves. That is something a filmmaker understands. And it is something a filmmaker who has not been able to make a film understands. Really understand.