Julia's Eyes

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

What a great film! Absolutely loved this one, scared the crap out of me whilst still being a beautiful dramatic story. One of those film that has its cake and eats it too. It does result in a longer running time but it's well worth it.

Unfortunately the cinema I saw it in had very bad crackly sound and was projected from a very pixilated digital format, it didn't even look full HD. Very upsetting, it would probably have been better if I had waited for the bluray release and watched it on my set up at home. But who knows how long this will take for a home release?

I thought the set up looked a little like the Pang Brother's film The Eye. But throughout the film you are unsure if what is transpiring is supernatural or not. Even by the end I'm not completely sure, but I don't think so, there's another conceit at play here thats much more creative albeit harder to explain.

Guillermo del Toro's name is stamped on this one as producer, which I must admit is a reason I wanted to see it. And like The Orphanage it has some genuine suspenseful moments with a real great story and characters you can care about as well. How can you not feel bad for someone going blind, especially when there may or may not be someone trying to kill her?

Now it was very hard to tell if it was purposefully shot very dark or if it was just a bad projector, I have the feeling it's the latter, but there are definitely some p.o.v. shots as she's going blind where it's hard to make out what your seeing. It's damn scary too. And they make the decision not to show the faces of anyone Julia meets after she starts going blind, so you are never sure who is really there. It's a great device and makes you suspicious of everyone.

It's a really well put together film and one I highly recommend seeing, even with bad projection and sound it worked wonders. Can't wait to see it again in a cleaner format!