Hey everyone. Capone in Austin here.
I rarely use the term "Hitchcockian," but I will admit that right from the start, Spanish director Guillem Morales is going for something in his film JULIA'S EYES that Master Alfred would have been proud of. The film opens right in the middle of the action. Sara is stumbling around her darkened home yelling at an unseen person. Is she crazy, or is there someone hiding in the shadows threatening her in some way? She makes her way to the basement where a stool and noose are already waiting for her as if prepared by another person, and without prompting she slips on the noose, yells something that sounds like refusal or rejection, and then kicks the stool out from under her…or was it kicked? Somewhere during this chaotic opening, it becomes clear that Sara is blind.
Next we jump to another woman, Julia, who bares a striking resemblance to Sara. Turns out they are twin sisters (both played by THE ORPHANAGE's Belen Rueda). Julia is a blonde (what else would Hitchcock choose) to Sara's dark hair. Julia feels something is horribly wrong, and when she and her husband go to investigate, they find the body in the basement and assume suicide. Turns out both sisters have a degenerative disorder that causes them to lose their eye sight slowly over time. Sara's sight went first, and a transplant didn't fix the problem. Julia assumes that this failure pushed her sister over the edge. But as she talks to the few friends and neighbors Sara had, she finds out that Sara may have had a boyfriend. The problem is, nobody can quite remember what he looks like. To compound the issue, Julia's eyes are failing as well and she has the unwavering sense that someone has been spying on her since she arrived at her sister's house.
Without getting too deep into this story and ruining some of the fun reveals and scares that happen along the way, Julia too has a transplant and is told she must keep her bandages on for two weeks or risk never regaining her sign. She is assigned a care giver who not only takes care of her needs but trains her on the art of functioning blind in case the surgery doesn't work. What's fascinating about JULIA'S EYES are some of the stylistic devices Morales uses to have us experience the world the way Julia does. When she's still able to see, he shoots the movie as you might expect. But when her sight is gone, we don't see the faces of anyone new that she meets, such as her caregiver or a nurse. We see the backs of the heads or everything from the neck down, but faces are now a luxury to Julia. When she interacts or even dreams about her husband or sister, those faces we see, but there's a major character in this movie that we don't actually see until well into the film. It's a wonderfully clever and appropriately frustrating device. And when both people and locations are revealed, the truth is shocking.
Much like THE ORPHANAGE, this film is produced by Guillermo Del Toro, who loves his scary movies more than just about anyone, and JULIA'S EYES is a gripping ride of tension, terror, and scream-inducing scares. But it's also a very human film about intense loneliness. Rueda is a great beauty, there's no getting around that, but also great at being strong and vulnerable all at once. She gets scared quite often, but there's a warrior's strength in her that never let's her fear paralyze her. Instead, it motivates her, and as a result, there are no cowering victims in this film. Once she gets her bearings, she begins to fight back against whatever is trying to overpower her. Obviously, I won't reveal what exactly is happening to Julia, but I will say that it is truly weird--not supernatural or some other kind of huge ruse. Just weird, and I couldn't have been more impressed with the gradual and staggering reveal. Del Toro the producer has been responsible for some excellent scare films in recent years, and his slate of upcoming releases (including January's DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK) looks solid, as well. I'm not sure what the release plan is for JULIA'S EYES but put it on your radar and keep tabs. I'm dying to see it again.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcool.com
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