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List Price: $9.98 | | Label: Artisan Entertainment
Salesrank: 8169
Released: August 21, 2001 |
| Our Price: $4.17 |
| Used Price: $2.39 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 03/11/2008 Run time: 117 minutes Rating: R
Description of Open Your Eyes:
Imagine if an actor's director like Eric Rohmer--whose films consist almost entirely of conversation between pairs or small groups of people--made a film that incorporated elements from movies like Dark City, eXistenZ, The Thirteenth Floor, The Truman Show, and Total Recall. The result might resemble Alejandro Amenabar's remarkable second feature, Open Your Eyes, which favors ideas over effects and offers twist upon twist with mind-warping agility. This film rewards multiple viewings, pushing the viewer toward one perception of reality, then switching to another until reality itself is called into question. Melodrama, love story, and psychological thriller combine with a dash of science fiction, forming a plot that is both disorienting and deceptively precise.
Set in Madrid, the story defies description, but this much can be revealed: young, handsome Cesar (Eduardo Noriega) is vain, rich, charming, and--following a botched suicide-murder scheme by a jilted lover--horribly disfigured. He'd fallen in love with Sofia (Penélope Cruz) but is now an embittered husk of his former self, stuck in a "psychiatric penitentiary" on a murder charge and hiding behind an expressionless mask. His reality has crumbled, but as the film's agenda is gradually revealed, we realize that there are other factors in play. Exposing that agenda would be a criminal offense against those who haven't seen the film; suffice it to say that Open Your Eyes takes you into the twilight zone and beyond, and does so cleverly enough to prompt Tom Cruise to produce and star in an English-language remake, Vanilla Sky. The 2001 remake, directed by Cameron Crowe, costars Cameron Diaz and Penélope Cruz, who reprises her original role. --Jeff Shannon
Open Your Eyes Reviews:
Hold on to the rails! 
2009-10-20 - Can you distinguish between reality and dreaming? Are you sure? If you had to choose between dying and perpetually dreaming, which would you choose? If you could influence your dreams such that they fulfill your fantasies, would you choose perpetually dreaming over living your real life? If you chose the former, would you make the same choice if there was a risk that your dreams would become nightmares? If you could skip the rest of your current life and instead wake up far in the future, would you do it?
These are the sort of psycho-philosophical issues explored by this movie. Of course, this is a movie rather than an academic lecture, so the exploration of these issues is symbolized through an engaging plot involving flesh-and-bone characters (or so it seems). In the process, a number of more standard themes are also explored, such as friendship, romantic love, lust, betrayal, revenge, punishment, social acceptance/rejection, and the influence of wealth and personal appearance (and, yes, Penelope Cruz is pretty hot in this movie).
So why 4 stars rather than 5? Because some elements of the plot seem unnecessarily incoherent to me. This adds avoidable confusion to a movie which is already exploring themes which are inherently amply challenging, disorienting, and maybe even disturbing. I think this incoherence muddles things a bit and thereby causes the movie to lose some of its potential power.
Nevertheless, I do recommend this movie to anyone interested in the themes I've mentioned. Also, this is a Spanish movie with English subtitles, and it definitely has what strikes me as a Spanish "feel," so that may enhance or weaken the movie for you, according to your taste (certainly enhanced it for me).
More Lucid than Vanilla Sky version 
2009-10-15 - Like other viewers, I had watched Vanilla Sky first and was intrigued enough to see the original Spanish production. The story line is easier to follow than Vanilla Sky. While the two versions are very similar, it's worth getting Open Your Eyes if you like the Vanilla Sky story. The movie was a lower budget production and relies more on story telling while Vanilla Sky is a typical slicked-up Hollywood makeover with better sets, music and cinematography. Both have their merits and are recommended.
Not a bad film
2008-11-23 - I got this because I am big fan of "Vanilla Sky." The plot line and even the dialog is very close. The climax of "Vanila Sky" was much better and it also better conveyed the sense of dis-jointedness of a bad dream. I'm glad I bought this video but if I had to choose between the two I would choose "Vanilla Sky" every time.
great mind juggler 
2008-08-28 - If you can follow subtitles along with movie, you'll like this one much more than vanilla sky. However, vanilla sky answered some questions for me or perhaps just that I knew what to expect.
Watch this first!
2008-05-02 - Oh yes you sould really see this movie before you watch the "Tom Cruise" one. But I guess you've already saw the hollywood version of it. But if you can please watch this first!
