“Close your eyes”, by the director of “The spirit of the hive”, will be screened today and Sunday the 13th in the Lugones Room of the San Martín Theater, within the framework of a retrospective dedicated to his work
Practically by surprise, and after a year and a half of waiting, the creation of the Spanish filmmaker-poet is announced for today at 8 pm in Sala Lugones of the San Martín Theater Víctor Erice “Close your eyes”. Unique opportunity to finally see it, on the big screen and at a moderate price, although, to tell the truth, a work like that, slow, 169 minutes, does not seem like the best option for a Friday night. But that’s how it is scheduled, and the other option is Sunday the 13th also at 8:00 p.m. There is no more, for the moment. Programmer stuff. Anyway, whoever can and is encouraged will see something unique.
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There are explanations. It all begins in a farm called Triste Le-Roy, the sad king, like the farm in the story of Borges “Death and the compass”and there is also a bust of the double-faced Janus, which the Borgians must point out. “Resonances?”he asked himself Erice. “Janus is a god associated with thresholds and doors. He opened them and closed them. Also associated with beginnings and endings”. A detective enters that estate, owned by a rich and melancholic man. He will go out with the mission of searching in Shanghai for the daughter that the rich man had with a Chinese woman. Later we see that all this was a scene from an unfinished film, but that the protagonist has really disappeared.
At that point the film also gets lost a little, and you even have to listen patiently to a man singing in full a song that Dean Martin sang better in “Rio Bravo”and it even seemed shorter. Anyway, a craving he had Erice during filming, the same as incorporating Soledad Villamil and then wasting it, things that the producers accepted because the man was already 80, this could be his last work, and the previous ones were beautiful. Let’s say, “The spirit of the hive”, “The south”, “The quince sun”the short “Delivery”exceptional, and others of similar level and long standing.
But back to the missing character. The film resumes its course when, years after that filming, his friend and director is able to find him. But forgetful. He doesn’t even know who he is. The daughter, who lost him as a child, sits next to him. Maybe there’s a way to make him remember. We will not say what that way is. Only, with that intrigue, the last 30 minutes of “Close your eyes” They are of a growing, unique emotion, and more than compensate for the other 30 minutes, expendable, that are in the middle. It is worth tolerating them to reach that ending so typical of the poet, which entire rooms receive with pure applause.
The two friends, he has written Erice, “they are the two faces – Janus – of the same identity. One cannot escape from one’s past, one carries the burden of memory; the other, touched by the hand of destiny, has freed himself from that weight.”. And adds as a false conclusion “In the story everything is fiction. It’s hard for me to understand reality here.”.
Concerning detail, the amnesiac is Jose Coronadopriceless, and the daughter, a thin woman, is Ana Torrentwhich just over 50 years ago made everyone fall in love with their eyes on “The spirit of the hive”. She was a girl then, and she’s still cute. Spanish-Argentine co-production, “Close your eyes” now occurs in a retrospective of almost everything Ericealso surrounded by a selection of Spanish works with a peasant theme and feminine hand: “Secaderos” (Rocío Mesa), “Muyeres” (Marta Lallana)the tradition of Asturian singing that is lost), “Summer 1993” (Carla Simon) and “The sky turns” (Mercedes Alvarezwith a delightful old lady pointing out the fossil footprint of a poor little dinosaur). Also, a historical piece, “Nine letters to Berta”1966, Basilio Martin Patinoanother director who would deserve a good reminder cycle.
Source: Ambito
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