Updating or Rewriting Life Is a Dream?: Open Your Eyes by Alejandro Amenábar

Abstract

The present study analyzes the relationship between Life is a dream by the Baroque playwright Calderón de la Barca and Alejandro Amenábars Abre los ojos from an intermedial perspective. By way of focusing not only on the similarities but also on the divergences in the treatment of the topos of life as a dream, it concludes that Amenábar’s film represents a revision of the Calderonian conception of existence. Amenábar presents an almost inverted perspective on the central axes of reflection that underpin Life is a dream: the relationship between dream and reality and the question of human freedom.