Blind (2014 Sundance capsule)

Blind combines the inventive freedom of the French New Wave, the emotional complexity of a great novel and the dirty mind of a 14-year-old kid. Ellen Dorrit Petersen plays Ingrid, a woman who copes with the loss of her eyesight by secluding herself in her apartment and writing salacious fiction that morphs into fantasies of what her husband does when she’s not around. The film isn’t just about insecurities and hangups, but how we can deal with those hangups through creative invention.

Norwegian director Eskil Vogt brilliantly blurs the lines between reality and imagination, simultaneously studying the creative process and the struggle for visualization when you can no longer see. Real-life events seamlessly give way to Ingrid’s latest writing, and it’s amazing how smoothly we can go from a real conversation between Ingrid and her husband to a fake online chat between him and a girl who doesn’t exist. When Ingrid reworks the details as she’s writing, or starts to sort out her emotional issues on the page, it makes for some truly lively cinema.

Director: Eskil Vogt
Writer: Eskil Vogt
Starring: Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Henrik Rafaelsen, Vera Vitali, Marius Kolbenstvedt
Production Details: Motlys, Lemming Film, 96 minutes