SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.
Open Your Eyes (1997) deals with the theme of illusion versus reality and how individuals can create their own versions of heaven and hell. (The film was remade in English entitled Vanilla Sky, starring Tom Cruise).
The first words in the film are the title. It is a
female voice recorded on the main character’s alarm clock. It is supposed to
wake him from his dream. But it also refers to seeing things as they really
are. And that is the problem that the protagonist, Cesar (Edwardo Noriega) must
address.
When Cesar takes a shower, the shower door and the bathroom mirror fog up. He must wipe away the moisture on the mirror to see himself. It is symbolic of Cesar trying to see things clearly. He drives in the middle of the day, but the streets are deserted. The film takes us into the surreal even though appearances seem realistic. Cesar is dreaming and then the opening repeats itself, only this time there is a woman in Cesar’s bed, who he is dismissive of. The woman is Nuria (Najwa Nimri), who will become the femme fatale of the story.
Cesar picks up his friend, Pelayo (Fele Martinez).
Through their conversation we learn that Cesar is wealthy and is a playboy who
never sees a woman twice (although he did with Nuria). Pelayo says he is
unpopular with women as opposed to the handsome Cesar. Cesar says anyone would
want to look “normal” like Pelayo. That statement is a bit of foreshadowing.
The two are playing racquet ball and Cesar says that God made him miss hitting
the ball.
Cesar is in prison because he killed someone. Antonio
has been talking to him for two months. Cesar is rich because his parents died
in an accident, and he inherited his father’s business fortune. That his
parents lost their lives in an accident mirrors what happened to Cesar. Is that
what happened or is it a strange coincidence? Cesar has an alternative truth as
he says it’s his partners who have railroaded him and are stopping him from
attaining his wealth. He says he sits on the floor because it is the only thing
that feels real as everything else seems like a lie. He is actually close to
the truth here.
Pelayo is angry because it appears to him that Cesar
is putting the moves on Sofia. However, he is very drunk and admits that he may
be seeing things. His is actually seeing things clearly and his altered state
paradoxically turns out to be a valid way of viewing the situation. Pelayo says
that Sofia may be “the girl of my dreams.” It is a statement that is often
used, but in the context of this story, it gains resonance because of the
ambiguity between reality and dreams.
When Cesar takes Sofia home, she kids about how her
family earns money as arms dealers. It’s another fiction as they play with what
is real and not. They draw pictures of each other. Sofia’s is a caricature,
which is an exaggeration of reality, while Cesar’s is an accurate depiction of
reality. This action again shows the theme of the film, and makes a comment
about making movies. They see an ad om the TV about cryonics, which becomes an
important issue in the story, dealing with freezing people after they die so
they can then be awakened when their bodies can be treated for whatever caused
their deaths. He admits in his narration to the psychiatrist that he felt love
for Sofia, something new for him.
At a bar he meets Pelayo and Sofia. He is wearing his mask, but Pelayo says he can’t hide his face. Does that mean he can’t hide who he really is, an egocentric person. Has he been a monster inside even though his appearance was lovely before? He places the mask so it faces his back. He appears to be two-faced, a phony. Outside, however, he tells Pelayo he is his best friend, which seems sincere. Sofia first leaves and then Sofia, and Cesar falls asleep on the pavement. This is an important dividing point in the story.When he wakes up he thinks he sees Nuria, but when he looks again, it is Sofia, and she is caring, and kisses him. Again, what is really happening? The next scene has Cesar back in the psychiatric penitentiary where Antonio looks at his drawings of Sofia. Cesar says never in his worst nightmares did he envision being in a place like the mental institution. The word “nightmare” is the negative side of the dream state, but it is just as false as a nice dream. Antonio asks him about another dream, and he says he was in an office he never visited, signing papers. He then says his doctors found a “miracle” cure, miracle being something out of the usual state of reality. He says it seemed like science fiction, which is what this film is, and the way things happen in a movie, which is what the audience is experiencing. Stories are fiction that reflect on reality, but are not real.
The doctors are successful, and Cesar and Sofia are
together, and he and Pelayo are friends. But Cesar has another dream, and he
sees that his face is still disfigured. Real or imaginary? He is in bed with
Sofia he believes, but it turns out to be Nuria, who says she is Sofia. He ties
her up and she says she never was in a car accident. Is he dreaming again, or
has he been dreaming all along? Or is he insane? The police say that the girl
he thinks is Sofia exists in his imagination, not in real life.
A man that he has seen on TV in the Life Extension ads
confronts Cesar and tells him he is dreaming. He says the people in the bar are
at his control, but they can destroy him if he gives into his demons. When he
says he just wants the people to be quiet, there is silence. He tells this
story to the psychiatrist, who hypnotizes him. In this dream state he recalls that
he signed a contract after which he took pills. When he wakes up from the
hypnosis he says he didn’t take any medications and that it was a dream, and he
can tell the difference between reality and a dream. We know he can’t, nor can
we at this point in the story.
He tells Antonio that he went to Sofia’s apartment.
One minute the woman there is Nuria but then turns back into the Sofia he remembers.
They make love, but during the lovemaking she turns back into Nuria. He says
that he put a pillow over her face and suffocated her. In a mirror he sees his
reflection which shows his deformed face. Mirrors, as has been noted elsewhere
on this blog, often refer to another part of an individual’s personality.
The psychiatrist believes that Cesar is deranged and
that he needs further treatment in the hospital. In the ward he again sees the
representative from Life Extension, Duvernois (Gerard Barray). Cesar realizes
he has been calling someone Eli in his memory, but it stands for L.E, Life
Extension. He gets Antonio to take him to an L.E. office, which he has seen in
his dreams. The representative there tells him that a person is frozen and can
be revived in the future when there will be medical procedures to correct the
fatal problem. There are options that can maintain the brain in a virtual
reality which is controlled by the individual. Cesar questions what happens if
the dream turns into a nightmare? Is that scenario what’s happening to Cesar?
Caesar says he is in a dream, but Antonio says that then the psychiatrist doesn’t exist, and that Cesar is being delusionary. It’s his dilemma, to try to understand what is his reality. He takes the mask off, and we see what he sees, that his face is still disfigured. He says he wants to wake up, struggles with a guard, gets his gun and shoots people. Antonio also gets shot, but suffers no effects. Cesar sees someone at the top of the building. Up there is Duvernois who says that everything after he woke up from sleeping in the street was his dream. He never saw Sofia again, became despondent, signed the Life Extension contract 150 years ago and committed suicide by taking pills. He created Antonio to help him understand what was happening to him. Sofia appears and so does Pelayo. Duvernois says they are just characters Cesar created from his memories and imagination, just like the filmmakers of this movie did. He has a choice: he can try to set his dream onto a happier course or end it. Medical knowledge now exists to correct his disfigurement. However, he must die in his dream world by jumping off the building to wake from his virtual reality. His face is no longer deformed as he stands on the edge of the building. He jumps from the building. The screen goes black, and we hear the female voice again saying, “Open your eyes.”
Was Cesar delusional or did he really live in an
artificial dream state? Do we have the courage to face the truth about our
lives or pretend to believe in a different version of the truth? These are the
questions posed by this film.