Blind Sun

Blind sun is as close to a thriller as Wong Kar Wai's "2046" to a sci-fi movie (which it is, but hey!). It is surely 'old school', if only for the high quality. To me, Blind Sun is all about the sun- sterilized atmosphere. The settings are unsettling: useless luxury that becomes a burden. I felt the space capsule isolation. Think of The Shining, Alien or even more the Cube. None of the horror, though. The angst comes from the urge to return over and over to a hostile chamber (to survive or to be doomed?). The sun is hostile, water is a dangerous precious (everything but purifying), the secondary characters seem to have all a dual nature: mundane and symbolic, walking antonomasias of who they are. From universal, to stereotyped, to grotesque. They may as well exist without a given name. In this visually amazing picture I found the pace very different from the cinematography I am getting used to lately. Here the film plays in 1970 terms, like an early Peter Weir or a gore-less Fulci (a hint of the latter accidentally suggested by an occasional hairdo). Every frame is deliberately beautiful, but it is a bitter beauty, the sort you experience smelling wild herbs. To take it in, you will breath deeply and then you might find yourself totally into the story like a compassionate but helpless passerby, or the opposite, obliviously distanced from the scene like this sun. This sun is a fierce star and this Earth is a planet with a toxic atmosphere and with an impossiblé gravity; returning to the infested capsule really seems the only way to buy time. A past hardship that is not even hinted at is immediately inferred, and makes the unthinkable almost tolerable.

Water as precious as gold! It's not a new idea and it might be quite a reality in a future not so far... BLIND SUN begins with this premise. In a remote region of Greece a strong heat wave make portable water a precious thing. To reinforce that idea there's a multinational company, which distributes water to the population, called "Bluegold"! The two elements, heat/fire and water are constant in the movie, as they represent two main forces of life! And healthiness... including psychological healthiness...

The heat wave and the lack of water are just the plot background to what truly is a psychological thriller and a perfect slow burner! In fact BLIND SUN is a mystery thriller where the pace is really slow and many scenes are almost contemplative (look at those beautiful landscape shots and that sunshine!) but the tension is growing scene by scene in a slow but effective way!

The characters aren't many, it's all around ASHRAF, the main character, and about what he sees and thinks... we "see" the plot through his mind... but it's not easy to understand a mind affected by extreme heat and thirstiness...

To sum up BLIND SUN is a mystery thriller with a great cinematography (nice camera details and beautiful scenarios) and a (very!) open ending...

I would like so much to discover more films like this one, not necessarily the same plot or scheme but only a movie that looks like anything else. A movie that glues you to the film, no matter the actors or directing. It looks like a short film tale, and the director seems to have made short movies before. It is not very talkative, and that's even better, the pictures talk by themselves. And I will say that the aesthetics is the main character here. I was amazed by the camera work, photography.... The eerie atmosphere, far more impressive than any predictable Hollywood horror film. I highly recommend it.

What's happening here ? We all saw the same film that pretty much wasn't a film that deserved even a critic !!!!! But No you got into the trouble to write what came to your mind just to praise something that was an absolute nothing !!!! You rated with a 7 to a10 ? Bravo to the cousins and batzanaki of the director also, you can come on Sunday to eat pastitzio with the family. And wear your shades because the sun is not the only one blind !

If you are into fast action and high adrenaline movies, then maybe you will think that this one is not for you...and do not get me wrong, I thought I was one of these people too, until I came across Blind Sun. You owe it to yourself to watch it till the last minute...it does change something in you.

This movie is a real thriller, unlike any horror tale, that keeps you continuously alerted and at the same time makes you realize how close we are to facing such issues on a global scale.

Excellent movie, with an exceptional cast and director...you really feel the heat.