Stockholm Film Festival

MARTIN IS BLIND FROM BIRTH AND doesn't trust anyone. Already as a young child he had the uncomfortable feeling that his mother was lying to him in order to punish him. As a grown man he compensates his handicap by taking photos - a kind of evidence that the world he imagines is the same world as the one people can see. Martin has for a long time been waiting for a person who could describe the photos for him. The dishwasher Andy is the first person he dares to confide in. Martin makes Andy swear that he'll never lie to him and they become close friends. But Martin's housekeeper Celia, who secretely is in love with him, becomes jealous of the two men's close relationship. Out of revenge she seduces Andy and forces him to lie to Martin.
Comment:
YOU'RE BORN. FULL OF EXPECTATIONS you're opening your big blue ones - and you see nothing. Zilch. Zero. No wonder you become bitter?
Once I worked in a place full of corridors. It was very difficult to find your way around. In these corridors worked a grey young man in ugly clothes - he was blind. In the labyrinths he couldn't find his way around at all. Early in the morning he started his nagging - would anyone, possibly, against all odds - take him to lunch? He was sitting in the corridors like a young cuckoo in the nest, making excuses. His pitiful appearance made us soon learn how to sneak by him as quiet as possible. Forget.
Once I went to a school. A lost parrot used to fly around in the big back yard. When we hadn't seen it for a week we mourned its passing away. A blind man went to the same school. As a seeing 13-year-old he had played with home-made tire crackers. Many years later he came to Sweden and learned very quickly to speak Swedish. We were all standing on the porch when he suddenly shouted while laughing: ''Look'' (that's what he said). ''Look, the parrot is back!''
And there it was sitting in an appletree. Dante was the only one who had seen it.
In a strange way it's not blindness that is the worst enemy of the blind. It's getting bitter.
We all know there are far too many bitter people, who've lost their curiosity, and cannot see a damned thing. Zero.
Those who go to a filmfestival have not given up on their sight. A man with a white cane may very well show up in the audience. Proof is a great film about a blind man who takes photographs. It's about daring to trust love. Bitterness then die and you can take off your Ray-Bans and start to live. _
HENRIC TISELIUS

Medverkande

Hugo Weaving, Russell Crowe

Producent

Lynda House

Manus

Jocelyn Moorhouse

Foto

Martin McGrath

Musik

Not Drowning, Waving

Talat språk

English

 

Andra filmer från sektionen Midnight Releases

Se alla festivalfilmer från 1991