Manolo Solo

Jose Coronado

Ana Torrent

Petra Martínez

María León

Mario Pardo

Helena Miquel

Antonio Dechent

Josep Maria Pou

Soledad Villamil

Juan Margallo

Venecia Franco

Rocío García Molina

Alejandro Caballero Ramis

Dani Téllez

Ana María

José Manuel Mansilla

Kao Chenmin

Fulgencio Javier

Víctor Erice

Conrad Clark

Cristina Zumárraga

José Alba

Federico Jusid

Ascen Marchena

Valentín Álvarez

Curru Garabal

Masha Clark

Agustín Bossi

Pol Bossi

Beata Wójtowicz

Iván Marín

María José Díez Álvarez

Juan Ferro

Michel Gaztambide

Odile Antonio-Baez

Maximiliano Lasansky

Helena Sanchís

Candela Palencia

Pablo E. Bossi

Drama

Mystery

Cerrar los ojos

Tandem Films

Pampa Films

Pecado Films

Nautilus Films

Movistar Plus+

Canal Sur

EiTB

TeleMadrid

Argentina

Spain

CinemaSerf

We begin by watching a ten minute excerpt from a drama that shortly afterwards discover is just about all there is from the final film of acclaimed Spanish actor "Julio Arenas". He finished filming for the day then was never seen nor heard from again. Many years later, a television journalist "Soriano" (Helena Miquel) invites the film's director "Garay" (Manolo Solo) onto her missing persons television programme with a view to finding out just what happened to him. In best "Crimewatch" style, someone calls into the programme with a possible lead. Might they have found this man after all these years? On the face of it, the story is all a bit predictable. It's the quality of the acting and the writing that puts the meat on the bones, and both Solo and the Jose Coronoado as handyman "Gardel" deliver engagingly well. It is a slow burn of a film, with an emphasis split between the search for the actor and the search of "Garay" for some degree of closure so he can get on with his life rather listlessly spent reading, drinking, smoking and fishing with the fellow residents of his squat. Fans of "Rio Bravo" (1959) might recognise the song he sings with neighbours "Toni" (Dani Téllez) and his expectant wife, and those few moments of the film demonstrate nicely the emotions of friendship, emotion and loneliness director Victor Erice wants to convey for just about all of the principal characters. The conclusion in inconclusive, but it does make you pine a little for the days where even the smallest of towns had it's own cinema. I wonder if anyone should ever make the underpinning movie? This is worth watching.