LOST and Vanilla Sky

With LOST currently dropping progressively bigger hints that the Show is not a straightforward Drama featuring Real People doing Real Deeds in Real Situations, but is instead a Game or an Illusion or a Dream, I thought I’d re-watch a couple of movies that are based upon this same premise: "Vanilla Sky" (2001), starring Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz - and the 1997 movie upon which VS was based: "Open your eyes" - also starring Penelope Cruz .... Penelope.

Notable points from Open Your Eyes:

The hero’s name is César

He’s being held in a Psychiatric Penitentiary for murder. During his first two months there, he was catatonic - like Hugo was at Santa Rosa. His shrink, Antonio, is trying to get Hugo, er César to remember and confront his crime. The rest of the movie jumps to and fro among flashbacks, dreams, nightmares and (finally) Present Day Reality:

A company called Life Extension ("LE") - pronounced "Ellie" - is a prominent player in this movie, and over time, we get to learn how and why. In LOST, Life Extension was one of the areas that DHARMA was researching - and Eternal Life might very well be what Daddy Widmore and Daddy Paik want from the Island. Ageless Richard seems to have accomplished Life Extension.

As events unfold in "Open your eyes", we find it harder and harder to know what is real and what is a dream. When César expresses some doubt as to whether or not a particular character is actually dead, Antonio says: "Im like you - I only believe what I see" - a line we’ve heard Sayid speak.

Like LOST, there are some Déja Vu moments here and there. Like Hugo, César likes to draw while incarcerated.

After César is released from the Police Station after having roughed "Sofia" up, his Best Friend shows him a picture of himself sitting at a table with his arm around the shoulders of "Sofia" - just like the picture that Hugo’s shrink showed Hugo to prove that "Dave" wasn’t real.

During a Bar Scene, in which César is drinking by himself, the LE Man approaches and tells him that he’s dreaming - and that everyone in the bar is a creature of his imagination - that they are there to serve and obey him. César says that he wished they would just shut up - which they promptly do.

We get to watch César making love to Sofia - who right before his eyes transforms into Nuria - the Stalker ex GF who killed herself and almost killed him when she drove her car off a bridge early in the movie. Having been driven more than a little crazy, César suffocates "Nuria" - and this is the murder for which he’s been arrested. As his Shrink walks away, convinced that César is guilty - and crazy, César catches another glimpse of that same LE ad - and suddenly knows that this is the "Ellie" he’s been overheard repeatedly mentioning in his sleep.

He convinces Antonio to accompany him to LE and we learn that the Company offers (wealthy) terminally-ill patients a couple of services: 1) Cryogenic long-term storage until such time that Medical Science can cure whatever afflicted the patient - and -
2) Lucid Dreams - while they’re in Suspended Animation - to help pass the time pleasantly.

Upon arrival at the LE skyscraper, César experiences some more Déja Vu: he’s been here before. He’s signed a contract. He’s dead - and everything he’s experienced after collapsing drunk on the sidewalk has been a dream - and/or nightmare. He didn’t murder anyone - except himself (via drug overdose).

The Shrink tries to convince César that the LE rep is lying - that he himself is real (he certainly believes that he is). But - he cannot recall the names of his "daughters". The fact that Antonio behaves as though he’s "real" and believes himself to be "real" is a hint that some, most or all of the characters in LOST are similarly mistaken.

César decides that he wants to wake up - and the way for him to do this is to jump off the top of the skyscraper - which he does. The last words (and the first words) of the film are: "Open your eyes". Note that in "Dave", Hugo was similarly counseled to jump and to "wake up", but he didn’t. I doubt it, but I sure hope he’s not still at Santa Rosa, catatonic, hallucinating LOST.
　

Notable Points from Vanilla Sky:

Near the beginning of the movie, Dave, our hero, played by Tom Cruise, is driving to a racquet-ball game with his best friend, and they’re in a near-miss - possibly fatal - accident. His friend tells Dave that just before the near-miss that "Your life flashed before my eyes"
Ken Leung (LOST’s Miles) - has a tiny, but memorable part near the beginning of VS
David’s Dad used to "seek adventure" - including sailing, parachuting and ballooning. David Ames Junior has inherited the business from his Daddy, David Sr.

Juliana - Dave’s Stalker "Fuck-buddy" - when she spots "Sofia" ( once again played by Penelope Cruz) tells Dave that she looks like a Moth. She subsequently asks Dave: "How’d it go with our Moth Girl? Did she turn into a butterfly for you?"

At the party, with Juliana watching from a distance, Dave strikes up a conversation with Sofia, during which he asks her if Juliana is "burning a hole in my back right now". She is.
LE’s Life Extension research "mascot" is "Benny the Dog" - who drowned in an icy river, was frozen in an ice-block for 3 months and was subsequently thawed and reanimated.
One of Dave’s favourite keep-sakes is a Toy Airplane

At one point, Penelope tells Dave that she will tell him something "in another life"
"Sofia" appears (as an "Imaginary Friend") in the Psych Penn where Dave is being held. He can see her but his Shrink cannot.

While David and Sofia are walking down a New York street, we see a VW bus - in the same colours as the LOST DHARMA buses. It turns out that this scene was "borrowed" from an album cover entitled "The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan"

At one point when "Sofia" is replaced by "Julianna", we hear Whispers.

When LE "Tech Support" tells Dave that the folks at the bar are figments of his imagination, he adds that "You are their God and you can make them obey you"

When Dave and his Shrink visit LE - their initial guide is a red-haired woman whose name is Libby. Their second guide (played by Tilda Swinton) also has red hair.

The LE Lucid Dream brochure includes: "Upon Resurrection, you will continue in an ageless state, preserved but living in the present with a future of your choosing." The music being played during the LE Lucid Dreams infomercial is "Good Vibrations".

The repeated line: "They laughed at Jules Verne too" helps convince Dave that he did, in fact, sign the deal with LE, including the Lucid Dreams option - and that he is in control of all the events he’s experienced - good and bad.

Having learned that he can choose to "wake up", we learn that Dave’s "Panel of Observers" await his Choice. He chooses to "wake up" and live out the rest of his natural life in The Future - where Modern Medicine can repair his disfigured face and other physical damage. But before he takes the last step before Waking Up - he "summons" Sofia, Manifesting her by Wishing Her Up, for one last kiss. His last words to her include: "I’ll see you in another life"

As he falls to earth, his life flashes before his eyes and the last words in the movie are: "Relax Dave. Open your eyes". The final image of the movie is an extreme close-up of an eye opening - which is the very first image we see on LOST.

So - there it is - A serious car accident followed by severe personal damage, Altered States - dreaming, nightmares, wishful thinking, false insanity, Bad Twins, Imaginary Friends, Manifestations, Non-Living Persons, Invisible (Whispering) Observers, mind-reading and Choice.

If LOST is all a Dream (which I hope it isn’t) - who is the Dreamer?

I’ve written before that the repeating personal themes we’ve seen time and again: Mysterious/Miraculous Birth, malicious or absent parent(s), car accidents followed by serious injuries often including amputations, child working with/for a parent, poor boy/rich girl, people secretly knowing a second language ... these scenarios seem to be Variations on a Theme - of a single life. So, again ... whose life? Jacob’s ?