The Eyes Closed

Directed by Joël Santoni

With Gérard Desarthe, Lorraine Rainer, Marcel Dalio, Jean Carmet and Lucien Raimbourg

Protagonist is the young actor Yvan. During a tour, he witnesses the inexplicable suicide of one of his fellow actors. Back in Paris he tells Xénie, the ex-lover of the dead actor. Xénie is in love with Yvan, but the latter sinks deeper and deeper into a personal crisis. At a certain point he acts being blind and buys a pair of glasses with black lenses. He is fascinated by his new, more restricted manner of seeing and refuses to open his eyes. Reality makes way for his more and more obsessive imagination. The mixture of fantasy and reality meant that Santoni's approach was compared with that of Buñuel.