A work of late style that is consciously and (very literally) about cinema, or should I say, The Power of Cinema (TM). It is a shame we had to resort to the rather artless lectures about the decline if the industry and that old saw of melodrama, a diagnosis of retrograde amnesia.
The rug pull after those first 15 minutes is something I immediately felt confused about, and even a bit disappointed over. My selfishness as a viewer, reflective of a greater cultural sense of wanting artists to keep doing exactly what we love them for—to keep giving us the same exact characteristic traits and qualities in their life’s work even as their life itself changes and charges along—took over.
— Soham Gadre (Paste Magazine)
Synopsis: Years after his mysterious disappearance, Julio Arenas, a famous Spanish actor, is back in the news thanks to a television program.