Truly GREAT Spanish Thriller Drama with Sci-Fi elements. This was the second feature film
from the young director, writer and composer genius Alejandro Amenábar, who's feature
film debut was the also great 1996 Crime thriller "Tesis" (read more about this one on my
Horror Film page 1). In 2001 he directed, wrote and composed the soundtrack to "Los Otros"
and in 2009 he made the brilliant "Agora" about the Alexandria 390 AD philosopher and
astronomer Hypatia and her terrible fate at the dawn of religious terror.

The Cinematography from Hans Burmann makes Abre Los Ojos a delight to watch and
with fine acting from foremost Eduardo Noriega you could watch this many times.
But also Fele Martínez (sensational in 1996 Tesis), Chete Lera and Penélope Cruz (in
her film debut) provide fine performances.
This was the 2nd time i watched Abre Los Ojos (the 1st was some 22 years ago) and
I liked it even better this time and surely it will be even better the 3rd time i watch it.
When you know the twists and turns and can concentrate on how perfectly well
it's made. But, beware of the Hollywood re-make version "Vanilla Sky".

Story:

César (Noriega) is a rich and good-looking young man in his 20's who dates a lot of
women and plays tennis with his best friend Pelayo (Fele Martínez).
Everything looks fine if it wasn't for those re-occurring dreams he have. He doesn't
know if he's dreaming or not. When he takes a morning drive with his car in Madrid
he's all alone, there's no-one there besides him and everything has turned into a
nightmare. But, "Abre Los Ojos" ..... he's clock-radio wakes him up, it was a dream.

Then he's in a jail cell and questioned by a Doctor, Antonio (Chete Lera) and César
is accused of murdering his girlfriend Nuria (Najwa Nimri). If that wasn't bad enough
César belives he's a monster and wears a mask. In a flashback we get to see how he
met his new girlfriend, Sofía (Penelope Cruz), he stole her from Pelayo.

The film is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen ratio and with Spanish audio 5.1 or 2.0
LPCM stereo with english subtitles.
Extras (in Spanish and no english subs):

Azi Se Hizo (Behind the Scenes) 24 minutes
Trailer, Teaser, Partitura and Galerias:
Documents, Script, Storyboards, Photos etc.
Audio Commentary by Alejandro Amenábar in Spanish
64 Page Book with texts in Spanish only