Movie review: Julia's Eyes
Julia's Eyes (Dir. Guillem Morales, 2010)
This movie took me completely by surprise; I came to see the blind final girl, and stayed for a smart and stylish filmthat kept me riveted until the very end.
Julia is a young woman who is slowly losing her sight due to a degenerative eye disease, but insists on investigating the death of her twin sister Sara, who suffered from the same eye condition. While Julia's husband and Sara's doctor conclude that her sister committed suicide because she couldn't live with being blind, Julia insists that Sara was stronger than that (ha! that's one in the eye for the condescending sighties!).
While Julia struggles to put together the puzzle pieces of Sara's life, it becomes a race against time as Julia's own limited vision rapidly fails.
Vision is the dominant theme of this movie, and this preoccupation with seeing is communicated through the camerawork as it seeks to capture what Julia sees (or doesn't see), in opposition to what men see when they look at Julia. This movie doesn't just interrogate the male gaze: it ties it to a chair and shines a spotlight in its face.
Most of all, this is a very good movie with strong acting, a clever script, and a lot of stylish camerawork.
As much as I enjoyed this movie, it's not for everyone. Aside from the fact that it is in Spanish and the number of scenes that involve injury to the eye, it's difficult to categorize it. It is more psychological than many slasher movies, but has more violence than most psychological horror movies.
Note: Alexx also wrote a review of this movie
http://alexx-kay.livejournal.com/400930.html
This entry was originally posted at http://kestrell.dreamwidth.org/257429.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
This movie took me completely by surprise; I came to see the blind final girl, and stayed for a smart and stylish filmthat kept me riveted until the very end.
Julia is a young woman who is slowly losing her sight due to a degenerative eye disease, but insists on investigating the death of her twin sister Sara, who suffered from the same eye condition. While Julia's husband and Sara's doctor conclude that her sister committed suicide because she couldn't live with being blind, Julia insists that Sara was stronger than that (ha! that's one in the eye for the condescending sighties!).
While Julia struggles to put together the puzzle pieces of Sara's life, it becomes a race against time as Julia's own limited vision rapidly fails.
Vision is the dominant theme of this movie, and this preoccupation with seeing is communicated through the camerawork as it seeks to capture what Julia sees (or doesn't see), in opposition to what men see when they look at Julia. This movie doesn't just interrogate the male gaze: it ties it to a chair and shines a spotlight in its face.
Most of all, this is a very good movie with strong acting, a clever script, and a lot of stylish camerawork.
As much as I enjoyed this movie, it's not for everyone. Aside from the fact that it is in Spanish and the number of scenes that involve injury to the eye, it's difficult to categorize it. It is more psychological than many slasher movies, but has more violence than most psychological horror movies.
Note: Alexx also wrote a review of this movie
http://alexx-kay.livejournal.com/400930.html
This entry was originally posted at http://kestrell.dreamwidth.org/257429.html. Please comment there using OpenID.