Review: Eskil Vogt's Magnificently Clear-Sighted 'Blind'

This is a reprint of our review from the 2014 Berlin Film Festival.

There is something about the idea of using cinema, a visual medium, to explore the tragedy and terror of sudden blindness that makes Norwegian Eskil Vogt’s directorial debut “Blind” an intriguing prospect even on paper (Vogt previously collaborated as a writer with Joachim Trier). But it’s where he, and extraordinary lead actor Ellen Dorrit Petersen, take that premise, and how stylishly and wittily they do so, that makes the film which won the screenwriting prize in Sundance, one of the finds of our Berlin Film Festival. In fact, it’s a shame it was pushed into a crowded Forum sidebar lineup, when it was so easily superior to the majority of this year’s lackluster Competition titles. Compelling, clever and surprisingly warm despite its cool palette, the film is also a worthy addition to the canon of recent Scandinavian cinema, a region whose filmmaking output seems only to grow in self-confidence and distinctiveness,...