Cine de choque: Image culture, the absence of the patriarch and violence in Alejandro Amenábar's Abre los ojos (1997)

This article proposes that Alejandro Amenábar's Abre los ojos (1997) is an example of what I term cine de choque, a specifically Hispanophone category of film in which the word choque – translatable as 'crash', 'shock' or 'clash' in English – informs both theme and aesthetics. In this particular example of cine de choque, an aesthetic is created on the basis of a structure in which lulls are almost as important as the film's crash, shocks and clashes. The film's lull–choque–lull aesthetic, I argue, emphasizes the allure of image and false explanations in the life of the protagonist César. This allure is partly explained by the absence of authoritative, patriarchal figures: both his parents are dead and the older male figures which compete for his attention prove to be unreliable. The resulting evocation of a culturally and historically orphaned youth culture in Spain helps to contextualize the film's acts of violence.