Spanish director Víctor Erice has only a few feature films to his name, but each one is an expertly measured exercise of the medium. His latest, “Close Your Eyes” is both a tribute to cinema and a reckoning with lost time and relationships. Like his politically charged classic “The Spirit of the Beehive,” released 50 years ago, “Close Your Eyes” is still in awe of the power of cinema but finds its limitations in a decaying state. The industry and the world around it has changed. Revered names and famous faces fade from the public’s memory, and the only ones who seem to remember them are the people who knew them as friends, lovers, or parents. In the movies, those memories come alive again, and briefly, we are reunited with the past.
In “Close Your Eyes,” former film director Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo) collaborates with a sensationalist TV show to share the mystery of his star and longtime friend, Julio Arenas (José Coronado), who disappeared before wrapping the movie they were shooting, walking out without explanation. For years, Miguel’s unfinished period piece sat on a dusty shelf, but now Miguel broadcasts a portion of it to see if anyone in Spain will recognize his long-lost friend. His search brings him to reconnect with his former editor and friend Max (Mario Pardo), a former flame he shared with Julio, Lola (Soledad Villamil), and Julio’s now grown daughter, Ana (Ana Torrent).
From the outset, “Close Your Eyes” holds extra meaning for the filmmaker. The movie is a reunion for Erice and the child star of “The Spirit of the Beehive,” Ana Torrent (again playing a role named Ana), and in this film, movies are a way to reconnect with people of the director’s past and relive a chapter in one’s life. Movies are souvenirs of memories, snapshots of a particular place and time that can never truly be revisited—after all, even if Miguel does find Julio, they can never go back to finish their old project. Erice’s “Close Your Eyes” is a bittersweet homage to the way movies can bring us together, remind us of the past, but can never bring us back to the people we once were.