Virtual Nightmare - Open Your Eyes

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Movie
German title Virtual Nightmare - Open Your Eyes (cinema / video)
Open your eyes (TV / DVD)
Original title Abre los ojos
Country of production Spain , France , Italy
original language Spanish
Publishing year 1997
length 114 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Alejandro Amenábar
script Mateo Gil
Alejandro Amenábar
production Fernando Bovaira
José Luis Cuerda
music Alejandro Amenábar
Mariano Marín
camera Hans Burmann
cut María Elena Sáinz de Rozas
occupation

Virtual Nightmare - Open Your Eyes (alternatively Open Your Eyes , original title Abre los ojos ) is a Spanish thriller from 1997 . In the film by Alejandro Amenábar , Eduardo Noriega , Penélope Cruz , Chete Lera , Fele Martínez , Najwa Nimri and Gérard Barray play the leading roles.

action

A young man named César, who wears a mask on his disfigured face, is detained in a closed psychiatric institution . He is said to have killed his girlfriend Sofia. The psychiatrist Antonio, who is supposed to check whether there is really a mental illness before the trial , tries to elicit memories of the time before the murder.

Little by little one learns of the events before the crime: the rich and handsome, but also arrogant César gets to know the love of his life at his birthday party in Sofia. He is later found by his jealous ex-lover, Nuria. Although he was condescending to her and had already declared their affair over, she wants to continue the relationship. When he is out in the car with Nuria, she deliberately causes an accident; Nuria dies, César's face is disfigured. The doctors make him understand that his face can never be completely reconstructed. Sofia keeps her distance from César. At a disco evening with his best friend Pelayo and Sofia, he gets drunk and ends up falling asleep on the street, left alone.

When César wakes up on the street the next morning, everything miraculously turns out for the best: Sofia declares her love for him, and the doctors have found a way to save his face. After a night of love, he suddenly finds Sofia Nuria in bed, who César thought was dead. Nuria insists that she is Sofia. He beats her, ties her to the bed and reports it to the police, believing that Nuria has done something to Sofia and now wants to take her place. However, the police confirm that the woman is really Sofia. To gain clarity, César breaks into Sofia's apartment. Nuria's face can be seen in all the pictures that should have featured Sofia. Nuria surprises him and again asserts that she is Sofia. Shortly afterwards she suddenly takes on the appearance of Sofia. While César and Sofia sleep together, she turns back into Nuria. César suffocates her with a pillow.

As César Antonio narrates what happened, more and more doubts arise as to which parts of his memories are real and which dreams could be. The name of a mysterious "Eli" appears in his memories, which César cannot classify, and a contract that he believes he has signed. Just as unclear is the role of the owner of a cryonics company, a certain Duvernois, whom César claims to have seen on television and who even spoke to him once in a bar. Then César sees a report on Duvernois' company in the television room of the establishment, whose name is “L. E. ”(English pronounced“ Eli ”) abbreviates. Together with Antonio, he finds out the full name of the company on the Internet: "Life Extension".

César is able to persuade Antonio to visit the company with him and under police surveillance. They have their offer explained by a consultant: In return for paying a large amount, “Life Extension” can freeze you after death in order to be reanimated in the future if, for example, treatment for a currently incurable disease is possible to become. You learn that when you sign the contract you can also choose to live in a virtual reality after the body has been preserved ; the time immediately before death is deleted in order to preserve the impression of continuity.

In the toilet, Antonio can convince César to take off his mask. When he looks at himself in the mirror, he sees his face disfigured by the accident again. When Antonio nevertheless assures him that his face is intact, he is convinced that he is in a dream. César escapes from the building and there is an exchange of fire with the guards. Antonio is injured and César passes out. When he wakes up, everyone except him and Antonio have disappeared, as have the gunshot wounds. César recognizes a person on the roof of the building and goes up with Antonio. There they meet Duvernois.

Duvernois reveals to César that he is indeed in a virtual reality. In reality, after the evening with Pelayo and Sofia, he found the offer of "Life Extension" on the Internet, signed a contract with them and then committed suicide. The time between spending the night on the street after the disco evening and his suicide was erased from his memory when his body was frozen. César is now in the future, 150 years after his death, locked in a cold container. Antonio is part of his pseudo-reality.

Duvernois gives César the choice of returning to his illusory world, where everything can turn out to be good again, or to wake up in reality, in which there is now the opportunity to restore his face. To wake up, César has to throw himself from the roof of the building. Although Antonio wants to hold him back and even Sofia appears again, César decides in favor of the promised reality and jumps into the depths. The film ends as it began with a black screen. A woman's voice from off asks César to open his eyes.

background

Film start

Virtual Nightmare premiered in Spain on December 19, 1997. In Germany the film first started on video on June 28, 2001 and was shown in cinemas on January 24, 2002.

Artistic parallels

The plot has some similarities with the 1969 science fiction novel Ubik (and the 1963 short story What the Dead Men Say ) by Philip K. Dick . In Ubik , the dream and reality of a number of people mix, who, as the reader learns in the finale, are frozen in an artificially prolonged limbo between life and death.

In the scene in which Sofia / Nuria changes her appearance after surprising César breaking into her apartment, the film quotes Vertigo - From the Realm of the Dead : As in Hitchcock's work, Sofia steps through a door frame while an unreal light falls on her falls; then the camera circles César and Sofia as they hug.

Aftermath

In 2001, director Cameron Crowe made an American remake called Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in the lead roles. Penélope Cruz took over the role of Sofía again.

Reviews

“ Virtual Nightmare is for the most part a feast for the eyes [...] Amenábar seems to have made a wonderful film about sex, illusions, mirrors, masks and being emotionally locked up. But Virtual Nightmare has another goal as well, it wants to be a psychological thriller and gets lost in an impenetrable, absurd plot about double identities, dream states and cryonics. [...] The levels collide with one another, and the film, which was so promising and tense, falls apart into a confusing chaos. "

- San Francisco Chronicle

“The experience of slipping into madness [...] works better than explaining how it came about. Even if the script [...] and the direction seem cobbled together, the obsessive topic is gripping [...] "

- Chicago Reader

“An intelligently enigmatic film that creates a bitter vision for the future, in which virtuality replaces reality and programmed desires replace existence. An equally exciting and unsettling film in the form of a psychological thriller that plays an underground game with appearance and reality. "

- Lexicon of international film

“Amenábar immerses his audience in an uncertain world in which they live. And he dismisses it just as uncertainly with the vague hope that everything could only have been nightmare, horror in a dream. But what does 'everything' mean? The accident, Sofia? The psychiatrist? The company 'Life Extension'? The commissioner? The boyfriend? Nuria? Which of them was a dream and which was reality? And so Amenábar also shows how cinema can manipulate and leave behind in the uncertain what can be 'clearly seen'. Our images shake in a world in which we continually dream of security without being able to have it or be able to own it, in which we constantly want to hold onto what is dear to us without being able to fix it. Not only in this respect is Amenábar's 'Open Your Eyes' more convincing than the remake by Cameron Crowe. "

- Ulrich Behrens

Awards

The film was also nominated at the Butaca Awards in the category Best Author's Film and at the Goya Awards in numerous categories, including a. for best film .

DVD release

Virtual Nightmare was released on DVD in Germany in 2002 (new edition 2007). This only contains the German dubbing, not the original Spanish version. The US , British and Spanish DVDs present the film in the original version with English subtitles.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry in the Internet Movie Database , accessed on April 5, 2012.
  2. ↑ a b Virtual Nightmare - Open Your Eyes in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used , accessed on April 5, 2012.
  3. ↑ [Open Your Eyes] is mostly a treat for the eyes […] Amenabar seems to have made a wonderful film about sex, illusion, mirrors, masks and emotional imprisonment. But "Open Your Eyes" has another agenda, to be a psychological thriller, and it strays into a thick, absurdist plot about double identities, dream states and cryogenics [...] The layers collide, and a film that had so much promise, even touches of suspense, collapses into a bewildering mass [sic!]. - Reviewed April 30, 1999 by Peter Stack in the San Francisco Chronicle, accessed April 5, 2012.
  4. ^ The experience of going mad [...] works better than the denouement explaining what brought it about. Even if the script […] and direction are patchy, the obsessive theme is gripping […] - Review by Jonathan Rosenbaum in Chicago Reader, without date, accessed on April 5, 2012.
  5. ^ Review by Ulrich Behrens on Filmzentrale.com, accessed on April 5, 2012.