27/07/16
In 1983 Australian-born theologian John M Hull began to lose his sight, and as a way of coping with and understanding his condition he and his wife documented the process using a cassette recorder. The threshold between documentary and drama is blurred as actors lip-sync the tapes that became the basis for Hull’s 1990 book Touching the Rock. His insights are both pragmatic and poetic and often he moves into metaphor as he tries to describe his blindness; at times the film recreates the reality of Hull's imagery, or his surreal musings on his now non-visual world. One moment he describes the sound of rain and the literal blanket of sound it creates in the immediate environment: how would a room sound if rain fell from the ceiling? We see water pouring onto armchairs and the kitchen sink as Hull stands submerged.
Shots are off-centre, people's eyes are seldom shown and much of the visual focus of a scene is left to the imagination. Some sort of animal moves off-camera during a family holiday to Victoria, but we, like Hull, are not part of the experience; the children point it out, but we miss it. That the actors are miming their dialogue - made even stranger by the fact that the real Hull died last year – presents a kind of uncanny relationship between what is seen and what is heard, illusory scenarios that draw attention to themselves as being both constructed and true to life. Sometimes it feels like we are watching puppets, other times it clicks into place and real emotion shines through.
Notes on Blindness is not so much a scientific study, but more an abstract exploration of how the loss of sight changes the way in which world can be experienced. Hull has to explain to his son the concept of blindness, how the sighted and non-sighted people must be able to communicate. By the end the discussion moves to God: ‘who has the right to deny me the sight of my children at Christmas time?’ he asks. It’s a deeply personal film, moving and necessary – seek it out if you can.
8/10