``Close Your Eyes'' and ``I am Ana'' spells, return of gaze

*This article touches on the core of the story, so we recommend reading it after watching the movie.

Synopsis of "Close Your Eyes"

Julio Arenas, the lead actor, disappeared during the filming of the movie ``A Look of Parting.'' At the time, police determined that he committed suicide by throwing himself because shoes were found on a nearby cliff, but the body was never recovered. 22 years The Day After, Miguel, a former film director and Julio's best friend, is asked to appear as a witness on a TV program investigating the mystery of the disappearance of a former popular actor. Miguel cooperates with the interview, but gradually begins to reminisce about his youth with Julio and his own life. After the program ended, an unexpected piece of information was received. "I know a man who looks a lot like Julio at a beachside facility."

Index

• The spell "I am Anna"
• see the sun and moon at the same time
• Head south!
• fade to black
• Return your gaze

The spell "I am Anna"

"During the shooting of ' The Beehive ' I was very worried about Ana Torrent. I thought, 'This film might make this girl age too quickly.'" (Victor Erice)

If movies are a bridge, what exactly can they be a bridge to? 50 years have passed since the absolute masterpiece “ Whisper of the Bees ” (1973) that cast a spell on the world. Victor Erice's new film ``Close Your Eyes'' (23), the first full-length film in 31 years since ` `Pink Sunshine '' (1992), depicts his reunion with and farewell to cinema.

This work, which begins with an unfinished film called ``A Farewell Gaze,'' jumps out of the movie-within-a-movie and progresses slowly like a detective novel. The windows open silently, as if they are the stamp of the filmmaker Victor Erice. The limitless imagination evoked by old photographs and notes left in books. And the unrelated memories packed in tin cans emit a prism of memory, just like the "box" of artist Joseph Cornell (the tin can contains Victor Erice's own memories). There's even a matchbox from a Deaf Japanese hotel!).

“Close Your Eyes” © 2023 La Mirada del Adiós AIE, Tandem Films SL, Nautilus Films SL, Pecado Films SL, Pampa Films SA

Former film director Miguel (Manolo Sono) and the unfinished film "Farewell Gaze". Popular actor Julio Arenas (Jose Coronado) disappears during filming. In "Farewell Gaze", Julio plays a detective who receives a request to search for a Chinese girl. Not only the actor who played the client, Triste le Roy (King of Sorrows), but many of the people involved in the film have already passed away. Why did Julio disappear? Was he a man who abandoned the world? Is he still alive? Is he living a new life with a different face? Did Julio even "exist" in the first place? "Close Your Eyes" strongly exudes the life of an actor, a profession that plays various characters, or illusions.

And then there is a reunion with Ana Torrent from " The Beehive ". Together with Ana Torrent, Victor Erice begins to explore again what lies between reality and illusion, between memory and forgetting. It is as if he is building a bridge with the girl who once cast the spell "I am Ana". Ana, 50 years later, opens her eyes and closes them.

see the sun and moon at the same time