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"Abre los ojos" (or "Open your eyes" in English) is the quote that opens one of the most ground breaking films of the past 20 years. This movie is a precursor to modern day psychological thrillers like Fight Club, Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Momento, Donnie Darko, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Abre Los Ojos definitely ranks among them in terms of quality. Written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar, this film mainly deals with the themes of dreams, obsession, and appearance. The film opens with César, a handsome, young, rich businessman and playboy, waking up in his bed. César gets dressed for the day and drives into Madrid as he usually does, but he find that the entire city is empty. César then wakes in his real bed with a women (Nuria) who wasn't there before, and the journey of Abre Los Ojos truly begins. César has the world on a string. He's got tons of money, a nice apartment, a cool car, an active social life, bangs as many chicks as he wants to, and today specifically is his birthday. At his birthday party he flirts with Sofía, the girlfriend of his best friend Pelayo. The next morning, he accepts a lift from his obsessive now ex-lover Nuria. She crashes the car, committing suicide, and César's face is horribly disfigured in the crash. Sofía is permanently turned off by César's new face, and she goes back to loving Pelayo. César becomes obsessed with Sofía, but after countless surgeries César's face is still horribly disfigured. The best the doctors can now do is give him a mask to wear in public. With the mask, César tries one last time to win the heart of Sofía again. He fails, ending up passed out on the street in a drunken stupor, but Sofía comes back to wake him up the next morning. From this point on everything is goes perfectly César. Sofía suddenly loves him despite his horrible face, and the doctors create this cutting edge surgery to reconstruct his face. I can't reveal much more with spoiling the story, but suffice to say there are periodic flashforwards to César in a mental ward awaiting trial for murder throughout the film. There are also commercials for a cryogenics company sprinkled around the film too. Abre Los Ojos explores the connection between dreams and reality in great depth. Coincidentally, César hates dreaming, but the line between dream and reality is almost non existent from the get-go. The film's opening shot is a first person view of of César waking up in a dream world, and César's life only improves after he passes out on the street. In the flashforwards César is wearing the mask the doctors gave him after the crash, and he refuses to remove it because he believes his face is still disfigured. But he recalls the miraculous surgery that repaired his face, and people around him claim that his face is perfectly normal. So it begs the question: Is César crazy, or is one of the stories a dream? This is one of the many mysteries Abre Los Ojos has, and the answer is a lot more complicated that you might think it is. In closing, Abre Los Ojos is a wonderful film that shouldn't be missed if you love any of the films I listed in my opening paragraph. The entire film is in Spanish, so you'll need to use subtitles if you don't know it (and screw you if you hate films that don't have English speaking characters). The first half of the film you'll be thinking, "Ok, this is really weird, but it's pretty good." Then in the second half of the film you'll think, "Holy poo poo, I totally didn't expect it to take such an awesome but so random and surreal direction." This is one of those films you wish you could watch for the first time over and over again, just to get the same magic you felt from it. The soundtrack is also excellent, and successfully underlines all of the important parts of the film. It's a shame most people only know Abre Los Ojos as the source materiel of its remake "Vanilla Sky" (starring Tom Cruise as César). I highly recommend this film to people who love tragic, intelligent, and surreal stories. 5/5 Mr.Smiley4 fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Dec 30, 2009 |
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Dec 29, 2009 22:22
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 09:15 |
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Fantastic film. 5/5 I saw Eternal Sunshine and Donnie Darko on your list and decided to watch this. I thought it started slow for the first third of the movie, but I was not disappointed at all. Highly recommended to anyone who is into surreal, philosophical, etc films. Similar worthwhile movies include: Waking Life, eXistenZ, and of course Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Sashkabob fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Dec 31, 2009 |
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Dec 30, 2009 06:53
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Sounds awfully similar to Vanilla Sky. I'll edit this post once I've seen it.
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Dec 30, 2009 18:28
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Should I see Vanilla Sky if I liked this one? Edit: Never mind, Vanilla Sky is a remake of Abre Los Ojos. Sashkabob fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Dec 31, 2009 |
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Dec 31, 2009 18:47
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Saw the movie as a result of this thread, and the excellent films posted as comparisons. It was those comparisons, and the stellar review, that maybe hyped it up a little too much. All of the films mentioned in the OP are, in my opinion, far superior to this one. It's a good movie, well shot, and well done, but just fails to be great. Not amazingly original, and even a little predictable at times, if you like the kind of movies in the OP you'll like this... it's just that you'll probably like it more, the less of them you've seen. 3.5/5
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Jan 18, 2010 01:03
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