“Could this film be a substitute for Erice’s unmade La promesa de Shanghái (The Promise of Shanghai), for which he wrote a screenplay that was ultimately dumped by its producer? Along with Erice’s other works, these projects share themes, names, motifs, patterns, and such ephemera as movie theaters, movie posters, old movies, and battered cigar boxes containing relics of the past. They add up to a mature artist’s statement on all such losses, inevitable and irredeemable, whether professional, personal, or existential, and the longing for ‘the place from which you never want to return.’ That place might be cinema itself, which offers consolation that is perhaps all the more powerful because it is illusory.” – Peter Keough, The Arts Fuse
CLOSE YOUR EYES premieres Fri, Sep 6 – Mon, Sep 9.