Famed Spanish filmmaker Victor Erice has finally returned with his first solo directorial feature film in 30 years. In those intervening decades, he only made one other film, co-directed with the late Abbas Kiarostami. Now, Erice is back and making a meta statement with mystery feature “Close Your Eyes.”
The “El Sur” and “The Spirit of the Beehive” helmer directs this reflective career culmination that is set in contemporary Madrid. Watch the trailer below.
“Close Your Eyes” follows aging filmmaker Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo) who is called upon to recount his memories of working on his final and still unfinished film titled “The Farewell Gaze.” During its production, the lead actor and Miguel’s close friend Julio Arenas (José Coronado) disappeared without a trace, leaving in his wake a mystery that would haunt the lives of everyone associated with the film. Miguel never directed another project, instead living a quiet life as a writer by the coast. He remained reluctant to unravel the mystery surrounding Julio until approached by an investigative television program reviving the case decades later. With careful reflection, he reconnects with the film’s crew, former lovers, and Julio’s daughter (Ana Torrent), seeking closure for the disappearance and what it meant for all of their lives.
Director Erice cowrote the film with Michel Gaztambide. The feature premiered at Cannes 2023, and was named one of the best films of the year by Cahiers du Cinema. “Close Your Eyes” was nominated for 10 prestigious Goya Awards, with Coronado winning the Best Supporting Actor award.
IndieWire critic David Ehrlich deemed “Close Your Eyes” an official Critic’s Pick after the film screened at NYFF.
“In some respects, it feels like the most nakedly personal film the now 83-year-old has ever made,” Ehrlich wrote in the review. “In others, it feels like the only film he’s ever made. Or maybe all of them.”
Ehrlich continued, “‘Close Your Eyes’ is neither an autobiographical cine-memoir à la ‘The Fabelmans’ nor a teary-eyed tribute to the magic of the movies in the vein of ‘Cinema Paradiso.’ Yet, as if by accident and divine purpose all at once, it also becomes both of those things by the end. Set at the dawn of the streaming age and shot with the funereal sterility that came with it, ‘Close Your Eyes’ openly laments the loss of a more tactile film experience (the kind that included actual film), but only so that it can honor the way certain images take root inside us when seen under the right circumstances, as inextricable from our being as a soul from its body.”
“Close Your Eyes” premieres August 23 in theaters from Film Movement. Check out the trailer below.
