Abre los ojos

After reading Ubik, this film was linked at the bottom of an article, along with virtual reality. The main link between this film and Ubik: not being able to tell reality from dream. Unfortunately, that's on the verge of being bastardised by Hollywood for me. I suspected this wouldn't be the case with this film because 1. It's in Spanish 2. Sundance. 2 extremely important points, no doubt.

My hopes prevailed: it turned out to be extremely engaging, and true intelligent food for thought -- without dressing itself into a film for intellectuals a la Tarkovsky's Solaris, or Stalker.

It's about a ladies man who finally sees more in a girl one day. It's his friend's date, and they just spend a bit of time together. Like in Ubik, there is a suspicious female character who likes our protagonist way more than he wants, which then leads the guy towards a major event which sparks the film into that of lucid, hypnotic dreams of intertwining psychological perplexity. Which is what I loved: not being able to tell what is real.

It isn't really a film of beautiful takes and immense cinematography, yet some of the scenes are so impressive because of plot content, which any good medium of science fiction should adhere to: taking you away from the world you perceive and into an another -- one that exists in all speculative thinkers and self philosophers. When a work is done to this standard it is the epitome of existentialist nutrition: one I'll choose to absorb over Dostoevsky any day.

It's widely accessible, which brings the film into greater realms unlike the esoteric, pretentious nature it could have delved into. Due to the acting, the way it moves, and the pace the film is still going to impress art house audiences; as with myself, it managed to evoke true emotion and steer clear of cheap awkward sci-fi moments we're used to and present itself as an intelligent film with true creative flare and artistry.