Abre los ojos is a much better film than Vanilla Sky. Discuss.

Abre los ojos (Amenábar, 1997) was brought to international attention through its remake, Vanilla Sky (Crowe, 2001) which was the first American remake of a Spanish film. Abre los ojos is a very intriguing drama/mystery about a handsome man who finds the love of his life but suffers an accident and has to have his face rebuilt through surgery after it is severely disfigured.

Cameron Crowe, the director of Vanilla Sky has described his remake as more of a “remix” as it draws attention to the original and does not eclipse the original, with the main changes coming through the dialogue with the scenes in the same sequence.

Greenburg:

'Remake is an act of aggression against the original film'

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'It steals the identity of the original and its success effaces it'

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'Remakes hinder the success of the original's overseas market'

Although it has been said by Crowe himself that the films were very similar, many argue that Vanilla Sky has completely transformed the story from an engaging mystery to a story of romance and redemption. There are many differences between the films aside from the change in story, the most noticeable being the personality of the protagonist. ‘Cesar’, in the original seems a rather clueless, but charming pretty boy who doesn’t give much away, where as in the remake, Tom Cruise’s protagonist portrays a classic Hollywood lead (a single, wealthy, handsome ladies man).  The issue with this “master of the universe” Hollywood protagonist is that they do not leave much mystery with the audience, as there is a lot of explanation of the characters and the plot.

There are many reasons for remakes; proven success, art house appeal and the rights for European screenplay are cheaper. Also, some remakes of foreign cinema tend to lose the original foreign elements, which leads Lucy Mazdon (2000) to question the idea of originality as the “originals” themselves are usually from novels, comic strips etc. She also states that ‘films are intertextual artifacts and remakes are part of that process of intertextuality.’

Albeit Crowe displayed the reality vs. dream world well, Vanilla Sky gives the kind of ending that European filmmakers are successful in avoiding, and it seems Hollywood directs can’t resist. The failure of Vanilla Sky is unfortunate as the film could have been one of the few American remakes to actually improve and become a step up from it foreign counterpart.