"A very damaging and a wrong one, but a love story all the same," is how director Iciar Bollain describes Take My Eyes, an award-winning tale of domestic abuse. Laia Marull gives a terrific performance as Pilar, a terrified housewife on the run from husband Antonio (Luis Toscar) and his regular outbursts of violent rage. Taking refuge with her sister Ana (Candela Peña), she tries to build a new life - but she's still in love with the man who beat her.
Scooping seven Goya awards (Spain's equivalent of the Oscars), Iciar Bollain's overly worthy film asks tough questions about violent men and the women who love them. A downbeat kitchen sink drama, it owes more than a nod to the cinema of Ken Loach (indeed Bollain has written a book on the British director and is married to his friend and collaborator Paul Laverty). Like Loach's cinema, the emphasis here is on serious issues, seriously treated, but - unlike our Ken - Bollain has a tendency to let the anticipation of violence build towards thriller clichés (check out those screeching violins).
"AN ELECTRIC PERFORMANCE FROM MARULL"
Victimising Pilar for the sake of tension, the thriller elements threaten to overturn the drama. Fortunately, Bollain realises that this gripping film is intense enough without resorting to too many cheap tricks. Building on an electric performance from Marull and a terrifying turn from Toscar (whose raging eyes and too-taut facial muscles suggest a man who's capable of exploding at any moment), Take My Eyes hints at the inescapable complexities of loving an abuser.
As Antonio's group therapy session suggest, it's a cultural issue as much as a personal one. Surrounded by macho, middle-aged men unable to understand why they shouldn't beat their wives, Antonio is clearly not a one-off. The strength of Bollain's feature, though, is in repeatedly convincing us that Antonio isn't a pantomime villain but a man who may yet be able to change his ways.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
Take My Eyes (Te Doy Mis Ojos) (2004)
