CAT OF THE DAY 059: ABRE LOS OJOS (aka OPEN YOUR EYES) (1997)

Is it real or is it Memorex?* Alejandro Amenábar‘s clever, genre-busting psychological thriller is about a good-looking playboy (Eduardo Noriega) who makes the mistake of accepting a lift from his crazy stalker ex-girlfriend (Najwa Nimri). She crashes the car, leaving him horribly disfigured.

Or does she? The story keeps moving the goalposts, till neither the protagonist nor the audience is able to distinguish between dream, reality and… something else.

But one thing is clear; Penélope Cruz, who plays Noriega’s ideal woman, has a pussycat. Even if we do see it in only one scene.

Cruz plays the same role in Vanilla Sky, Cameron Crowe’s lame remake for Anglophones who can’t be bothered to read subtitles, but she here has a dog instead of a cat. Yet more proof, if any were needed, of Hollywood’s insidious anti-cat agenda.

She does talk cat, though: “See you in the next life, when we’re both cats.”

So there.

*Memorex VHS tape commercial from 1982:

Related articles

• #EK – Top 20 Movies for Philosophy Students (eddykimani.wordpress.com)