Review: Open Your Eyes (Otwórz oczy), season 1

Maria Wawreniuk in Open Your Eyes

Open Your Eyes (Otwórz oczy) brings mystery and sci-fi from Poland in a six episode series that keeps you guessing to the end. The end feels more like opening a new phase of the story to be told in a second season (which I haven’t seen announced yet). The series is on Netflix.

Open Your Eyes (Otwórz oczy) is a mix of drama, mystery, horror, and sci-fi. The main quality of this carefully crafted tale is the characters don’t know what is real and the viewers don’t either. It’s a cat and mouse game with the truth vs. hallucination until the very end.

Ignacy Liss and Maria Wawreniuk in Open Your Eyes
Julia and Adam in a calm moment

The main character, Julia (Maria Wawreniuk), wakes up in a clinic for patients with amnesia. She remembers nothing but what she learns there. She hears that the burn on her arm came from a fire in which both her parents died. She is there to recover.

Julia befriends other patients at the clinic. Most important is Adam (Ignacy Liss). Several other patients are about her age, but there are also very young children there. All lost their memory in some traumatic event. Many have a talent. They might be dancers or artists. Julia is a pianist. Adam tries to learn piano, but he’s not good at it.

Adam tried to escape the place before. He doesn’t follow orders as well as the others which draws Julia to him. They fall in love.

Marta Nieradkiewicz in Open Your Eyes
Marta Nieradkiewicz also starred in Ultraviolet

Dr. Zofia Morulska (Marta Nieradkiewicz) runs the clinic. She does talk therapy with the patients, but they are also given drugs daily. Julia soon begins to suspect that the problems the patients are having relate to the drugs.

Julia has vivid dreams and frequent hallucinations. The well-done trick in this series is that neither Julia or the viewers quite grasp what’s real. The doctors and big strong men who seem to be medical staff urge all the people with a talent to work at it and perfect it. I hope you like Debussy’s “Clair du Lune,” because you’re going to hear it many times.

Julia struggles to learn the truth. She stops taking the meds. She investigates. She searches. She runs. The suspense builds as the episodes go by because each time it looks like Julia has figured out what’s happening, we discover another twist. The final twist at the very end could well lead to a second season.

Anna Jadowska directed half of the episodes in season 1. The series is all available for binge watching. It’s mysteries will keep you engaged.

Poster for Open Your Eyes

Here’s a trailer.

If you watch this one, please share your thoughts on it.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top
WordPress Cookie Notice by Real Cookie Banner