Open Your Eyes, David

Rating: Null/10 (16 June 2004)

I love this film. I own it and have seen it at least eight times. Every time I watch it, more and more of the small details make sense to me. Nevertheless, I've reached a point where I think I understand all that the movie has to offer, which is A lot, but I think that Cameron Crowe should have ironed out the script just a bit more. DO NOT READ FROM THIS POINT IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE - THIS IS A SPOILER.
So it's obvious that the one facet of the film that seems to mindf**k all of its viewers is the glitch in David's Lucid dream. This glitch is apparently caused by David's repressed guilt concerning Julie Gianni and the trouble that he knows he's brought to her life. My understanding is that while in his lucid dream, David desperately tries to suppress that guilt - or kill it - and this explains the "beating" of Julie Gianni. Along the lines of Freuds explanations of repression and sublimation, David's mind plays tricks on him: while he's trying to rid himself of the guilt over Julie Gianni - and in essence rid his mind of Julie herself - he is unable to do so because he finds that that guilt is interfering with his current life and love, Sofia - and it reveals itself in David's mind by substituting Sofia for Julie over and over. In the end he knows he killed somebody - metaphorically Julie, i.e. he destroyed her soul by refusing to commit to her - and then literally Julie bc of obvious reasons - but his guilt envelops his ability to distinguish between which of the women who love him.
So his mind is imprisoned because he knows he did something wrong - but he can't figure it out. This is the basis of the jail and Kurt Russell's character - to sort out his own mind over what happened. When he finally remembers that he entered a Lucid Dream and that his subconscious has been playing tricks on him - he calls tech support and there you have the rest of the end which is pretty much spelled out pretty well in the film.
But the problem I have is that 1) He should have somehow showed remorse for his neglect of Julie Gianni. He clearly felt guilty about it but in the end Crowe made his guilt seem pointless because he never rectified the situation - he merely redeclared his love for Sofia. If 'every waking moment is another chance to turn it all around', then I wish that they had showed some sort of remorse from David regarding Julie.
2) The glitch confused the s**t out of people. Having a sudden twist of plot in the form of resurfacing of repressed guilt is confusing if it is a) not explained right then and there b) never explained.
3) I don't get the "This is a revolution of the mind" bits. Why do people say that to him? Does it mean that the film is a revolution of the mind? Or the Lucid Dream product? What? Reminds me of Magnolia's bits of "It really happened" and Genesis references that they intersperse after the Frogs scene. That made sense, but Vanilla Sky's doesn't to me.
I noticed for the first time last night, however, that Julie Gianni says "Open Your Eyes, David" in the very last scene!! Ahh!! Does this mean that she did lucid dream as well? If he comes back 150 years into the future, how is it possible that SHE is saying Open your eyes??? Is this is mind again playing tricks? I want answers!
It took me more than 5 times to finally get a decent grasp on this movie. I like that, but I feel that Crowe could have made it a little better to understand the first time around. The prison scenes are so confusing that it's better to have it explicitly stated in the end that they weren't real so that the second time around you can watch it knowing that.
Maybe I'm just a bit slow, but I don't know if having to watch a movie 5 times to get it is a good thing or not.