Veteran Spanish film maker Víctor Erice emerged in 1973 with his haunting feature debut, The Spirit of the Beehive. Ten years later, he was all set to deliver his second, much-awaited feature, when the producer out-Ambersoned him.
Orson Welles had famously seen his second film and the follow up to Citizen Kane unceremoniously mutilated by RKO. When the studio saw how downbeat the second half of The Magnificent Ambersons was, and understood the irony of its title, they instructed his editor to cut the final 40 minutes (yes, that’s forty) and add on an oh so tacky happy ending.
Not to be outdone, when Erice’s producer found out that El Sur (’83) had a similarly suspect second half planned, he simply refused to allow him to film its second half. So unsurprisingly, the director has disowned it.
Ten years later, Erice made the elegiac documentary feature, The Quince Tree Sun (’92). And now, thirty years after that, he has, at the age of 82, returned with his fourth feature, Close Your Eyes.
The film operates on two levels. On its surface, a veteran film maker ends up re-visiting the events around a film he’d been making over two decades ago, when the principal actor, and his close personal friend, had suddenly and inexplicably disappeared without trace. Was it really suicide, or did something else take place?
But really, the film is an exploration of memory and loss, of roads not taken and the life that was lived as opposed to the many that remain only partially embarked upon. The handful of things you said yes to, and the many others that somehow slipped through your fingers to disappear in the sand at your feet.
Close Your Eyes is not merely one of the better films of the year, it’s one if the best. But your response, rather like the film itself, will register on two levels.
Of course, it almost goes without saying, to see anything new from Erice is something to be welcomed with unbridled joy. And the fact that the film is, as I say, comfortably in the top ten per cent of films made anywhere in the world in 2023, is a monumental relief and to be loudly heralded.
But The Spirit of the Beehive and The Quince Tree Sun were both in the top one per cent of the films made when they came out. Which isn’t to suggest that Close Your Eyes is in any way disappointing. It’s just not the dazzling, celestial triumph we’d all hoped it might be. The problem, very simply, is its length.
There’s really no need for its near three hours. As sacrilegious as this is to say out loud, I wish an editor had been brought in to carefully cull it down to a trim two hours. There’s no need for any of the scenes in Andalucia, and those nuns, charming as they are, should have been briefly glimpsed as non-speaking extras.
It is of course completely understandable, not to say commendable, that he should have wanted to give as many of his collaborators as many moments in the sun as he could muster. But it’s hard not to quietly wish that he were a far less generous collaborator and a slightly more rigorous film maker.
All of which is to quibble. Watch Close Your Eyes, it’s one of the best films of the year. And then treat yourself to The Spirit of the Beehive, and The Quince Tree Sun.
You can see the trailer to Close Your Eyes below:
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