DVD review: Eskil Vogt's Blind a study of isolation and perception
Vogt has produced a slick exploration of how perceptions can be altered, and on how people react when they feel themselves being distanced from society
Norwegian writer-director Eskil Vogt's stunning debut feature will do little to cast off the cliche that Scandinavian films are all to do with icy cold exteriors and simmering (sometimes sinister) inner passions.
His story revolves around Ingrid (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) who has recently lost her sight and is learning to cope with how it affects her day-to-day life as well as the fiction she turns to in her occupation as a writer.
The challenge - and the brilliance from the filmmaker in the way he frames his narrative - is having to work out what parts of this life are real and what parts are imagined.
Ingrid has cut herself off from the world, retreating into the safety of her flat and keeping everything - apart from her partner Morten (Henrik Rafaelsen) - at arm's length. And Vogt is able to fully realise this sense of isolation, with the help of muted sounds from outside and the muted colours that surround the characters inside.
Petersen's ethereal qualities add to the sense that she has become removed almost from life itself, as she ghosts around the flat and by its windows. The world as she knew it has vanished and in one telling scene Ingrid presses herself against the glass, naked and almost demanding the world sees, even proves, her existence.