Poster
Watch

Close Your Eyes

Cerrar los ojos

  • Status: Released
  • 16-08-2023
  • Runtime: 169 min
  • Score: 6.994
  • Vote count: 88

Years after his mysterious disappearance, Julio Arenas, a famous Spanish actor, is back in the news thanks to a television program.

Manolo Solo

Miguel Garay

Jose Coronado

Julio Arenas / Gardel

Ana Torrent

Ana Arenas

Petra Martínez

Sister Consuelo

María León

Belén

Mario Pardo

Max Roca

Helena Miquel

Marta Soriano

Antonio Dechent

Tico Mayoral

Josep Maria Pou

Ferrán Soler (Mr. Levy)

Soledad Villamil

Lola San Román

Juan Margallo

Doctor Benavides

Venecia Franco

Qiao Shu

Rocío García Molina

Teresa

Alejandro Caballero Ramis

Patón

Dani Téllez

Toni

Ana María

Sor Lucía

José Manuel Mansilla

Don Rafael

Kao Chenmin

Lin Yu

Fulgencio Javier

Cristian

CinemaSerf

We begin by watching a ten minute excerpt from a drama that shortly afterwards discover is just about all there is from the final film of acclaimed Spanish actor "Julio Arenas". He finished filming for the day then was never seen nor heard from again. Many years later, a television journalist "Soriano" (Helena Miquel) invites the film's director "Garay" (Manolo Solo) onto her missing persons television programme with a view to finding out just what happened to him. In best "Crimewatch" style, someone calls into the programme with a possible lead. Might they have found this man after all these years? On the face of it, the story is all a bit predictable. It's the quality of the acting and the writing that puts the meat on the bones, and both Solo and the Jose Coronoado as handyman "Gardel" deliver engagingly well. It is a slow burn of a film, with an emphasis split between the search for the actor and the search of "Garay" for some degree of closure so he can get on with his life rather listlessly spent reading, drinking, smoking and fishing with the fellow residents of his squat. Fans of "Rio Bravo" (1959) might recognise the song he sings with neighbours "Toni" (Dani Téllez) and his expectant wife, and those few moments of the film demonstrate nicely the emotions of friendship, emotion and loneliness director Victor Erice wants to convey for just about all of the principal characters. The conclusion in inconclusive, but it does make you pine a little for the days where even the smallest of towns had it's own cinema. I wonder if anyone should ever make the underpinning movie? This is worth watching.