Antón Terni’s film is a slender, beautiful thing. It is an intimate study of three blind people who spend time together in the Uruguayan countryside. Terni’s camera is a silent observer, as the three play cards or go swimming in the ocean or even, on one occasion, get lost. This sequence when Oscar, searching for firewood for the barbecue, loses his stick and then his way, is heart stopping. Whilst the film is on the whole an affecting and life affirming study, this moment opens the door to the viewer on the vulnerability of the blind. It also draws our attention to the presence of the filmmaker and there’s a paradox here because we know that in this moment Oscar will be ok, because someone sees what is happening to him, but in another, when he is not seen, disaster could strike. Terni seeks to keep himself out of the story, but it’s an impossible task. In some ways the luscious use of the camera as it drifts, in keeping with the slower rhythms of its subjects, would appear to be his way of acknowledging this. The filmmaker’s eye is distinctive, it is a counterpoint to all that his subjects cannot discern, or rather, that which they discern in another fashion, which the camera could never capture.
No comments:
Post a Comment