Abre los ojos Back to Index

Imdb Rating: 7.8
Genre: Drama
Directed: Alejandro Amenábar , Mateo Gil
Country: Spain
Year: 1997
Duration: 117 min

Media: Hot stuff

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Actors: Eduardo Noriega (as César), Penélope Cruz (as Sofía), Chete Lera (as Antonio), Fele Martínez (as Pelayo), Najwa Nimri (as Nuria), Gérard Barray (as Duvernois (seńor TV)), Jorge de Juan (as Encargado L.E.), Miguel Palenzuela (as Commissar), Pedro Miguel Martínez (as Chief Doctor), Ion Gabella (as Paranoic recluse), Joserra Cadińanos (as Guard), Tristán Ulloa (as Waiter), Pepe Navarro (as TV Presenter), Jaro (as Doctor 1), Walter Prieto (as Doctor 2)

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Description: A very handsome man finds the love of his life, but he suffers an accident and needs to have his face rebuilt by surgery after it is severely disfigured.

Comment: Alejandro Amenabar is the new brains of the fantasy film,and maybe of the European cinema.Take the snuff movie topic :he did much better than Shumacher's "8 mm".Now he takes an hackneyed subject which has been treated many times and surprises the audience.

Combining Georges Franju 's "les yeux sans visage" (1960)-for the strange poetry which emanates from the mask the hero(heroine in the French movie) wears-,Adrian Lyne's "Jacob's ladder" and what will be LATER developed in "matrix" or "the sixth sense" ,Amenabar creates a disturbing,absorbing and mesmerizing movie.He succeeds in surprising the audience the way only Alfred Hitchcock could do before:the movie begins as some kind of two-bit comedy,with such futile subjects as trying and picking someone up and parties,then slowly but inexorably grips the audience's mind ,and the interest won't weaken till the very end.Like in "psycho" or "Rosemary's baby" or "Jacob's ladder" ,nothing should be revealed.

For the French,there's another surprise:Serge Duvernois is played by Gérard Barray.This actor was very famous in the sixties for playing in swashbucklers the likes of "Pardaillan" "Surcouf" and "les trois mousquetaires".He was some kind of Jean Marais's alter ego.Then he completely disappeared from the screens in the late sixties(he probably became a stage actor).So I had not seen him for thirty years or more!Seeing him in such a spooky part adds to the eerie atmosphere.I wish the French directors could think of him a little more now.

IMDB TRIVIA FOR ABRE LOS OJOS (1997):
- Alejandro Amenábar imagined the script after having horrible nightmares while ill with the flu.
- When César (Eduardo Noriega) goes to Sofia (Penélope Cruz)'s apartment and starts to rip down her photos on the wall, there is a picture of "The Sandman," a popular comic book that deals with the world of dreams, created by Neil Gaiman.
- Penélope Cruz also stars in Vanilla Sky (2001), Cameron Crowe's remake of this film, playing the same character, Sofia.
- César's apartment uses same set used by the character of David in Pedro Almodóvar's movie Carne trémula (1997), which also starred Penélope Cruz.
- Director Cameo: [Alejandro Amenábar] with other two people in the bathroom of the disco, when César goes there. He is the last one that gets out.
- The film's title translates to "open your eyes," which is a repeated motif.
- The song playing at the nightclub when César first arrives is "Rising Son" by Massive Attack, in which the phrase "dream on" is frequently repeated.

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