“In the dream of the man that dreamed, the dreamed one awoke.”

—The Circular Ruins by Jorge Luis Borges

When I was watching Open Your Eyes, Borges’s short story The Circular Ruins also came up to my train of thoughts. Both stories narrate a similar theme, which is the protagonists’ waking from a dream that belongs to another dream. The absurdity of life is vividly revealed through these stories, pulling the audience into panic and skepticism, unable to discern what is real and its projection. Time seems to become an element of nihilism, as the path to wake up from the dream is like a matryoshka doll but infinite. It’s often difficult to have the self-consciousness of being in a dream when we are dreaming, the definition of reality is also obscured. The conflicts we face while choosing between dream or reality belongs to one of the most fundamental philosophical questions.

When the protagonist Cesar is disfigured in the accident, he loses the appearance that he’s proud of. For Cesar, the disfigurement for him is also the impairment of his love relationship, self-confidence, and his life. Facing the cruelty of truth, Cesar traps himself in the endless loop of dreams. The constant switching between hideousness and beauty also blinds the truth from us. To disguise his fragmented face, Cesar eventually accepts to hide behind the mask despite the initial rejection. At this moment, Cesar’s identity is also fragmented into disorder. There’s a backlighting scene in the movie when Cesar wears his mask on his back head, forming a silhouette of two side faces. This can also be interpreted as symbolism for Cesar’s divided identities and his disoriented perception of his existence in time. The protagonist has been asked several times in the movie about what is happiness, but he fails to answer. Whether it’s a nice dream or a nightmare, all depends on Cesar’s choices. When Cesar chooses his looks to be the protagonist of his dreams, he also chooses the most precarious shallowness which appears as frequent nightmares. In Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, he also expresses this entangled confusion between illusion and truth: “I suppose therefore that all things I see are illusions; I believe that nothing has ever existed of everything my lying memory tells me.” Despite we believe that our sensory perceptions are real enough to be considered as realities, we shouldn’t forget that we were also deceived by the same thoughts in dreams.

However, when Cesar realizes that he lives in a constructed dream, he still faces the dilemma of choosing to live in the lucid dream or reality. The final moment when he chose to jump off the building also reminds me of the Matrix. While the Matrix delivers a sense of self-transcendence, Abre Los Ojos emphasizes the courage to face the truth. Can Cesar truly enter the reality after he opens his eyes or would he still be trapped in the endless loop of dreaming?

我個(gè)人認(rèn)為一切人物都是男主虛構(gòu)出來(lái)的，唯獨(dú)合伙人是真實(shí)的，他不是延壽公司的負(fù)責(zé)人。后面其實(shí)從男主發(fā)生車(chē)禍就開(kāi)始進(jìn)入一種徹底的幻想狀態(tài)，他分不清兩個(gè)女人，不清楚自己到底有沒(méi)有整容，以為自己殺人并入獄，甚至又懷疑自己是冰凍的復(fù)活人。從結(jié)尾可以看出，一切都是現(xiàn)實(shí)的合伙人在搞鬼，甚至他有可能是導(dǎo)致男主精神錯(cuò)亂的根本原因，所以也在結(jié)尾出現(xiàn)，代表著男主夢(mèng)境的終結(jié)和現(xiàn)實(shí)的侵入。結(jié)尾很重要，從精神醫(yī)生被開(kāi)槍射中后沒(méi)有死，包括一切行人消失，說(shuō)明精神醫(yī)生的一切都是男主虛構(gòu)出來(lái)的，因?yàn)槟兄鞔_實(shí)是精神失常的，他幻想了這一系列人物和故事，但是最后合伙人的出現(xiàn)徹底讓他否定了現(xiàn)實(shí)世界，他以不可知的世界和唯有自己存在的視角為誘餌，讓男主永遠(yuǎn)地閉上雙眼，并允諾會(huì)給他一個(gè)更美好的幻想世界，沒(méi)有現(xiàn)實(shí)的傷痛引發(fā)的精神錯(cuò)亂。最終，一切真相大白，男主沒(méi)有毀容，他的現(xiàn)實(shí)沒(méi)有那么凄慘，他也恢復(fù)了他的正?；孟?，看到了他夢(mèng)中的情人，在另一方精神醫(yī)生的呼喚下，他提醒即使他精神錯(cuò)亂，這一切都是因?yàn)樗诂F(xiàn)實(shí)真實(shí)存在，他只是希望能看到別人，看到世界的真實(shí)存在而已，哪怕世界是混亂的痛苦的，可是總會(huì)有美好的幻想出現(xiàn)。男主已經(jīng)不相信自己了，他選擇以自殺的方式把希望托付給一個(gè)無(wú)比堅(jiān)定只有自己存在的代理人，真是可笑，如果他也這么認(rèn)為，他為什么認(rèn)為男主存在呢？恐怕男主只有在最終一躍的瞬間才感覺(jué)到最大的真實(shí)感吧，這比心愛(ài)的女人還真實(shí)的死亡的感覺(jué)才能提醒他：睜開(kāi)你的雙眼，從虛假的夢(mèng)中醒來(lái)吧！去做關(guān)于別人的夢(mèng)！

冷凍身體連接美夢(mèng)，卻因?yàn)樽陨淼目謶殖闪素瑝?mèng)。

恐懼車(chē)禍后毀容

恐懼前女友報(bào)復(fù)他

男主為了甩掉短發(fā)女友，找兄弟的女友索菲亞幫助躲開(kāi)短發(fā)女友，跟索菲亞待一夜之后，第二天坐上前女友的車(chē)出了車(chē)禍，前女友因?yàn)樗椿ㄈ遣菟韵敫哺包S泉，結(jié)果男主只是毀容了

毀容之后索菲亞對(duì)他很冷淡，他找上了生命延續(xù)，那個(gè)搞人體冷凍的公司，簽了協(xié)議，服藥自殺了

那個(gè)公司的操作是，你先死，死了給你人體冷凍，然后給你制造一場(chǎng)夢(mèng)，虛擬的現(xiàn)實(shí)，就從男主在酒吧醉酒睡在大街上開(kāi)始接上虛擬的現(xiàn)實(shí)，等到該復(fù)活的時(shí)候再讓你活下來(lái)，清除你找到他們公司簽署合同包括你已經(jīng)死掉的記憶，讓你醒來(lái)再接入真實(shí)的現(xiàn)實(shí)

然后夢(mèng)和現(xiàn)實(shí)的銜接出了點(diǎn)差錯(cuò)，導(dǎo)致男主總是交錯(cuò)看到自己完好的臉和毀容的臉，還有索菲亞和短發(fā)女友的臉

就那兩根小棍重疊一部分接上，是整部電影的關(guān)鍵所在。

給我看的很懵

人想太多就容易有精神病。

引用：要么完整的接受現(xiàn)實(shí)中不完美的生活，承認(rèn)自己的缺陷，不貪不厭不驕不躁，按現(xiàn)實(shí)的規(guī)則好好做人

要么全身心投入夢(mèng)境，別懷疑幸福，別帶入過(guò)去的傷疤。

清醒和沉睡之間的思考，是無(wú)盡的痛苦，懷疑，內(nèi)心的決定實(shí)在太艱難，外界的幫助又充滿陰謀。