Close Your Eyes

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

[mr_rating_result]

The Spanish auteur Víctor Erice (“Spirit of the Beehive”) has crafted yet another engrossing feature with painstaking care and detail in the new “Close Your Eyes.” While it might intimidate some viewers by its three-hour running time, it is nonetheless rich and immersive as a comprehensive meditation on memory and friendship.

Miguel (Manolo Solo) is a writer. News comes to him of his friend Julio (Jose Coronado) dying during the filming of a script he wrote. He has segments of the film, but these are only mere glimpses of the story. Miguel is haunted by his friend and becomes obsessed if not possessed by lost memories and the passage of time.

Miguel tries to make sense of Julio’s disappearance by talking to his daughter, Ana (Ana Torrent). Ana has little to say. Her father was largely absent.

Then Miguel learns that Lola (Soledad Villemil) a mutual lover, is alive and well. Perhaps she has some answers.

Lola comes up empty.

Miguel is at a loss, bereft. But through sheer faith and stubbornness, he hears word of his navy buddy possibly living in a catholic sanitarium.

Rather than an episodic drama, we are treated to little slivers of life that create building blocks of two lives and at times, even three. These blocks of minute detail are interspersed by Miguel ‘s wishes and his fears as if he were inside a living dream.

The screenwriter is anguished. Is the disappearance of Julio due to his behavior? Or is something cosmic and predetermined at play?

The performances are first rate with a tone reminiscent of Bergman or Bunuel.

A highlight features a rendition of “My Rifle My Pony and Me” from “Rio Bravo” which contains a new rhythm and poignance, as eccentric as it is heartfelt.

The final scenes alone are masterpieces in miniature speaking of the cinema and its flickering mercurial nature, its calligraphy of light.

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com