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Blinded
Writer/director Eleanor Yule’s Blinded can
best be described as an exercise in frustration. Danish backpacker Mike
(Anders W. Berthelsen) is wandering the Scottish countryside and finds
work at a ‘run-down’ farm with a blind farmer, his mum (yes, I was
thinking Bates Motel too) and beautiful but Brontëan (including her
attire!) Rachel Black (Jodhi May), his wife.
It would be fairly easy for any healthy man to steal
a woman from a surly, grumpy, blind guy and that’s what happens. The
farm also features a seemingly insatiable bog into which Mike, as part
of his job, throws old farm machinery. But the Dane also carries with
him a criminal record for murdering his mother.
I won’t bother to discuss the plot anymore, because
it’s predictable and thin as paper. I would have been prepared to
exchange a feeble plot for complex acting, suspense and atmosphere. On
these counts, the film also fails I think. It reminds one of an
over-wrought student film that drones on and on. Maybe as a short, it
would have worked. It looks like it was shot on DV rather than film
stock and while some cinematography is impressive, it’s just not
sustained. The fact that in Australia it was never theatrically released
is very telling. It is, as they say, ‘straight to video’.
* The preview disc had stereo sound and no special
features as such.
Felix Staica |
