Review: Close Your Eyes

Image courtesy of Film Movement.

The Spanish filmmaker Victor Erice has made four films in about 50 years, so it’s good that with his latest, “Close Your Eyes,” his first in 31 years, he makes it count.

The first 20 minutes or so of the picture – which clocks in at just under three hours – casts a spell as we watch an old man, at some point after World War II and the Spanish Civil War, has called another man to his estate for a mission. The visitor (Jose Coronado) is asked to find a young woman, who is half-Spanish, half-Chinese, who has gone missing.

The spell is broken when we learn that this interlude was a prolonged scene from an unfinished movie titled “The Farewell Gaze” that was shot in 1990 and never completed when Julio Arenas (Coronado, who portrayed the visiting man to the estate in the opening scenes) walked off the set and was never seen again.

This disappearance has haunted the film’s director, Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo), ever since – not only because it derailed his career, but also because Arenas was his close friend; they’d served in the military together and even shared a girlfriend at one point.

Miguel is interviewed by a TV show that focuses on solving mysteries about Arenas’ disappearance and while he seems reluctant to take part in it, the fact that he has never been able to move past it makes him curious enough to get involved.

He meets up with the now-adult daughter of Arenas (played by Ana Torrent, the start of Erice’s 1973 classic and greatest film to date, “The Spirit of the Beehive”), who clearly has affection for Miguel but is not interested in being interviewed for the show.

Then, a break in the Arenas case sets into motion a new series of events in its final third. I won’t give away what happens, but suffice it to say that the last section of the movie involves Miguel and some of his friends trying to – for lack of a better phrase – save a life through cinema.

Much of the film’s action moves at a pace that some might find glacial and it takes patience to get where it’s ultimately going. But those who are accustomed to so-called slow cinema will be rewarded. Erice’s debut, “Beehive,” is one of film’s greatest and is among the undisputed classics of 1970s European cinema. His next two films – “El Sur” and “The Quince Tree Sun” (unseen by me) – were well liked but not as rapturously received.

Therefore, “Close Your Eyes” is Erice’s finest work since his debut. It’s a moving testament to plundering the past to heal wounds – which, in this case, is carried out through the medium in which Erice has plied his trade. This is a mysterious, haunting, and powerful film.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Overstuffed is one word I'd use to describe Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice," but amusing is another. It's one of many sequels in recent years that I'm not sure necessarily needed to exist - but now that it does, there's enough to recommend it.

Not quite picking up where the original film left off - hell, it's been 36 years - the film finds Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) with her own TV show called "Ghost House" in which she investigates haunted places and a daughter, Astrid (Jenny Ortega), who thinks little of her. Lydia's stepmother, Delia (Catherine O'Hara), has become a gallery owner and artist and, at the film's beginning, Delia's husband has died in a plane crash (well, sort of). 

Meanwhile, Lydia's smarmy boyfriend and producer, Rory (Justin Theroux), is laying it on thick for Lydia in hopes that she'll agree to marry him. When Lydia - with Rory and Astrid in tow- come home for the funeral of her father, all hell - and this includes Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) - breaks loose.

There's also a subplot in which Astrid meets a seemingly shy boy who invites her over for a Halloween party but has a secret, and Lydia must come to her rescue. This leads most of the film's cast to the world of the dead, where Beetlejuice strikes a deal with Lydia that if she'll agree to marry him, he'll help with her daughter. At the same time, Beetlejuice is trying to escape a past flame (Monica Bellucci), who sucks the souls of the dead. 

So, yeah, a little overstuffed. But there are a lot of sight gags and often surprisingly icky special effects to keep viewers' eyeballs popping. There's an amusing thread involving a Beetlejuice flunky named Bob, who is left in charge while Beetlejuice goes off with Lydia for their mission. There's also a police inspector - who's actually a movie star (yeah, it's a little confusing) - played by Willem Defoe who is chasing down the various undead cases involved in the film's plot.

Not surprisingly, "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" is often a feast for the eyes. This is Tim Burton's best film to look at in some time. The special effects in this one seem less CGI than some of his other endeavors of recent years and look more homespun as they were in the 1988 original.

Not everything here works. There are several moments, mostly having to do with music, that I could have done without - namely, a series of soul train sequences that seem to exist solely to have extended dance scenes in the picture, a children's a cappella choir rendition of "Banana Boat (Day-O)" that might have you shaking your head rather than nodding it, and a sing-a-long to almost the entire damn running length of Richard Harris' "Macarthur Park" (seriously, don't ask).

Otherwise, "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" is an amusing enough sequel with a spirited reprisal by Keaton of his star-making role as well as some solid supporting work by Ryder, Ortega, and O'Hara. Also, it's nice to once again see Burton working with props and handmade effects than the digital ones that have populated his more recent work. This is one of his more successful recent ventures.

Review: Between The Temples

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Cantor Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman) lost his wife to an accident about a year before "Between the Temples" starts, but when we meet him he has also lost his voice - it is his duty to lead the congregation in prayer via song - and seemingly his will to go on.

Ben is living with his well-meaning mother (Caroline Aaron) and her somewhat overbearing wife (Dolly De Leon), who continually try to hook their grieving son up with other women in their small, upstate New York community. The most awkward moment is an introduction involving a plastic surgeon who wants Ben to feel how firm her face is.

While Ben finds a momentary note of inspiration in a car with his rabbi boss's daughter (Madeline Weinstein), his biggest boost comes from befriending Carla Kessler (Carol Kane), his childhood music teacher whom he bumps into at a bar after getting punched during a dispute with another man. 

Carla tends to Ben and upon learning that he helps youngsters at his synagogue undergo the year-long preparation for their bar or bat mitzvahs, she decides she wants to have her own, even though her son points out that she's technically Protestant and far too old to have one. Regardless, Ben is inspired by the vigor with which Carla pursues this interest and a friendship forms, much to the chagrin of her son.

Both Carla and Ben have lost their spouses and over the course of the film's often nutty 110 minutes, they bond over non-kosher hamburgers, seemingly hallucinogenic tea, and Hebrew lessons. She's a little too young to be Maude and he's far too old to be Harold, but there's a similar vibe - minus the obsession with death - to this pair's relationship.

This is a film that draws some hilarity from awkward scenarios, from a strangely erotic sequence in a Jewish cemetery to a dinner involving most of the film's prime characters that becomes increasingly uncomfortable when Ben decides to be a little less formal than the occasion probably necessitates.

"Between the Temples" takes a little while to get going, but once it does it's effective - often funny and occasionally soulful, due to the work of Kane and Schwartzman, who also nailed the role of a grieving spouse in last year's "Asteroid City." This is a solid little comedy that grew on me.