Inner Lives: Onscreen disability in Eskil Vogt's Blind
As Sundance prize-winner Blind makes its way to UK cinemas, its writer-director explains how he found humour in his harrowing subject matter and why Al Pacino's Oscar-winning turn in Scent of a Woman is the epitome of bad blind acting
In his debut feature, Norwegian screenwriter-turned-director Eskil Vogt imbues cognitive visualisations with narrative trickery to achieve what many have tried but failed to do on screen: successfully recreate what life without vision might be like. However, the film is more than just a portal into a world without sight, and broaches universal themes such as dealing with depression, body image and the social isolation of living with a disability.
Vogt says: “I read somewhere that one of the first questions asked by women when they go blind is, ‘How do I put on my make-up now?’” For the director it was important for his central character to be a woman so he could tackle all of these themes in one: “It’s such a simple and obvious question because it’s hard to apply make-up without the mirror. But you would think if you’re blind you wouldn’t care, but of course you do, you actually care even more because you’ve lost control over that aspect of your life – an aspect that has previously been so important.”
It all sounds rather serious, but Vogt’s a mischievous storyteller who is fascinated with searching for the humour that often accompanies tragedy. “When I started writing I thought, ‘You’re going to get a lot of heat from people complaining the film isn’t clean enough, or elegant enough, that it’s too contrasted, too fragmented’," he says, "but I felt if I just stay true to what I feel is interesting, then it would be alright.”
Researching late-onset blindness doesn’t sound like it would lead to many comedic scenarios, but Vogt managed to find a few things that made him smile: “Have you heard of these guide horses? Sorry, not horses – ponies. They train them in the States because guide dogs only work for eight years and it's very expensive to train them. They look so weird! You turn around on the subway and there’s this little pony and it has to wear these little sneakers because they’re not used to walking around on the pavement. They look hysterical."
In the UK we’re familiar with guide dogs but Vogt indicates these ponies could become more prevalent in the UK: “It makes sense, especially because a lot of Muslims can’t have dogs because of religious reasons. In England I found a Muslim girl who saved a lot of money to get one of these guide horses because her family wouldn’t let her have a guide dog. It was impossible to get hold of one for the film but I did think it would be funny to have one pop up in the background.”
We learn early on that Ingrid (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) turned blind in her 30s from a genetic disorder. When her husband leaves the house to go to work, she sits at the window and imagines he’s still there, silently watching her. “This film is about more than just blindness," says Vogt, "it’s about our inner lives. Our lives are a mixed bag of stupid thoughts, intelligent thoughts, bad jokes, and sexual impulses. We have everything just boiling inside of us and it’s not always clean and elegant. The film is an expression of that.”
Determined to preserve her ability to remember images from her past, Ingrid constructs a narrative for her memories to inhabit. It's within these imaginative fabrications that she introduces us to Einar (Marius Kolbenstvedt), an overweight recluse addicted to pornography, something Vogt doesn’t shy from showing the audience: “I like the juxtaposition of the blind woman who can’t see and the lonely man who can only see women. He can see these women online but he can’t access them physically.”
Einar begins to tire of the internet's darkest corners and begins to spy on Elin (Vera Vitali), a Swedish divorcee who lives across the street. Elin’s life slowly begins to mirror Ingrid’s and becomes a safe space in which she can begin coming to terms with what scares her most and it’s here that Ingrid’s husband begins to permeate Elin’s story: “One thing people fear most about going blind is ending up doubly isolated, not only because they can’t see but because they become a burden on people close to them”.
Shot by esteemed Greek cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis (Dogtooth, Attenberg), Vogt’s film defies common conceptions of how blindness should be expressed on the screen, ignoring clichés (such as blurring the peripheral edges of the screen) and instead focusing intensely on single objects and Ingrid’s interior world.
“This film is about more than just blindness, it’s about our inner lives” – Eskil Vogt
Vogt explains: “In the beginning we were really worried about getting this right because during my research I found that what I thought was good blind acting really wasn’t. The people I met who could see before they lost their sight didn’t stare into space like Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. They would react to sound. If you talk to them they’ll instantly move their eyes to your lips because it’s so ingrained within the way we act to sounds. We thought about doing the contact lenses, but I was afraid because the eyes are so important into getting the thoughts of the actor and in this film it’s so important to get the interior life of the character right.
“When we started shooting we realised it wasn’t just the eyes that were important but also the body language. When blind people move they’re slightly guarded and they have all those little extra gestures like checking with their hand to check if there’s something on a table before putting a glass down. It was important for all these things to seem automatic or natural because only then does it feel believable.”
Blind women in film are often represented as the victim, yet Ingrid becomes increasingly resilient as the film progresses. “It’s very important to me and a big part of the casting that Ingrid wouldn’t be reduced to a victim of her handicap," says Vogt. "I chose Ellen because she has such a natural dignity, and even a little arrogance in her. It’s impossible to reduce her to a victim.”
Ingrid learns to accept her handicap, yet her struggle illuminates a more universal concern, namely the subjugation of women in a society obsessed with superficial beauty. Vogt says: “I realised early on why it felt so right to me that she was a woman, because the burden on women today to focus on their appearance is much bigger than on us men. It’s why it was such an important thing for me to get the casting for that character correct because she needed that strength but, you know, sometimes you have to admit that you need help too and maybe that’s her issue during the film. She’s too proud, too intelligent and too used to being self-sufficient that she has a really hard time accepting her new situation.”