Julia's Eyes

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Have you ever watched a film and saw the idea inception, the scene from which the entire movie was borne? Cronenberg calls that scene "the crystal that the movie forms around." The crystal here is a tense one: a blind woman, whose sight has secretly returned, sits in front of the bad guy, who thinks she's still blind, with a poisoned cup of tea: does she drink it or reveal her hand? A great scene, yes, but the entire movie seems like an excuse just to get it on celluloid and nothing really matches its quality.

Julia (Reuda) doesn't believe her twin sister Sara committed suicide: there was no note, she wasn't depressed as she was just weeks away from corrective eye surgery (both sisters have a degenerative eye disease) and the song playing when she died was one she hated (The Look of Love). Julia reckons someone was with her when she died and when neighbours and waiters in local restaurants claim that Sara had a boyfriend, or at least a man she was keeping company with, she begins a thorough search for him…

Guillem Morales works overtime to put the audience in Julia's shoes by positioning the camera just out of reach of characters' faces - like Julia, we can't see who is talking or what their motivations might be. While the tactic is mysterious, unsettling and frustrating - bringing the audience close to imagining what it is to be to losing one's sight - it's also a victory of style over substance. For a story about a woman losing her sight, Morales strangely concentrates on the visual side of things instead of the aural. Exploring different ways sound can be used to tell a story would have been the way to go since Julia relies on that more than anything. The style is impressive - the cinematography is by Oscar Faura, who gave us the bleak, washed out look of The Machinist - but the story lacks depth and relies far too much on convenience.

Turning things up to eleven could have been the way to go too but Morales only gives into this occasionally, preferring instead to take things far too seriously. If only we could have had more OTT reactions and old school thriller lines. "You're looking for a man who is a shadow, an absence," a wheezy old man tells Julia in a cellar, and when investigating Sara's details with the hotel she was staying, Julia is told, "it's as if her details have all been erased (Din! Din! Din!). It wasn't to be, however. Julia's eyes should have been creepy fun but all the humour is drained out of it.

Ifs, buts, maybes and shoulds - Julia's Eyes is a missed opportunity.