Blind (2014) - Vogt's artistic debut about blindness makes its audience confused and depressed

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Lead Ellen Dorrit Petersen (Thelma (2017)) exhibits her naked backside on the poster for Eskil Vogt's Blind

A blind woman remembers her boyfriend, when he is away from her, and when he is there, she feels far away from him. Another lonely woman misses her son, when he is not with her, and she seeks a new human connection.

Blind is the feature directing debut for writer-director Eskil Vogt (Oslo, August 31st/Oslo, 31. August (2011), co-writer). It is a depressing Norwegian drama, in which characters are lonely, awkward, disloyal SPOILER and, - as if to make matters worse, - the woman with the son also suddenly and inexplicably becomes blind. The introverted male character guides us thoroughly through his masturbation and porn habits. - But what for? Besides it possibly adding a tangent to the general, grey picture of depressing adult life in Norway, which is projected in Blind.
The blindness that the film deals with certainly makes it more uncomfortable, because audiences unavoidably imagine themselves put in the horrific situation of losing one's vision, and the inevitable everyday results of the handicap: The spots that would go unnoticed, the things we would be walking into; the secrets that might evolve due to our defect, and the distance to the surrounding world. Blind cultivates these issues and in doing so leaves the one-sided impression that life with blindness is only sad, lonely and miserable. The artistic strokes of Vogt's film don't save it from being uncompelling and depressing.

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Vogt gave en interview at the London Film Festival about Blind that you can watch here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown (likely at least a huge flop)
[Blind premiered 17 January (Sundance) and runs 96 minutes. Shooting took place in Oslo, Norway. The film won festival and some critical acclaim but has no box office performances released and is likely to have made very little money and become a huge flop theatrically. This article indicates that it was also a box office disappointment in Norway, where it had sold some 6k tickets after two weeks. The film was nominated for two Sundance awards, winning Vogt a screenwriting prize, nominated for the Nordic Council Film Prize, won a distribution prize at Berlin International Film Festival, an AFI Fest nomination and 4 out of 7 nominations at the Norwegian Amanda Awards. Vogt has focused on screenwriting since the film; he has written for countryman Joachim Trier's latest two films, Louder Than Bombs (2015) and Thelma (2017). Blind is fresh at 94 % with a 7.7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Blind?

Oslo, August 31st/Oslo, 31. August (2011) - Trier's tough-as-nails existentialist drug addict drama

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1 Time Film Excess Nominee:


Best Actor: Anders Danielsen Lie (lost to Jack Black for Bernie)

+ Best Norwegian Movie of the Year
+ Best Drug-themed Movie of the Year

Anders Danielsen Lie on deep water in Joachim Trier's Oslo, August 31st

Anders was an aspiring journalist, but instead became a drug addict. Now he is allowed his first visit out of the rehabilitation center, and he visits old friends and acquaintances and goes to a job interview. But to his dismay he finds that as a 34 year-old man, he has nothing.

Great Norwegian writer-director Joachim Trier (Reprise (2006)) here serves an existentialist, anxiety-provoking, almost horrifying story without any psychedelic or narrative sleights. Oslo, August 31st is observant and incredibly sober.
The film contains strong scenes between two people; strong because the stakes are towering for our protagonist. Anders Danielsen Lie (Reprise) is unmatched in the lead. The film is seamlessly photographed (by Jacob Ihre (Louder than Bombs (2015)) and scored (by Torgny Amdam (High Point (2014), short) and Ola Fløttum (Force Majeure/Turist (2014))) with seemingly great insight into the environments it portrays. SPOILER As could be expected from the fatalistic tone of the film's title as well as its opening montage, Oslo, August 31st ends as a tragedy, swept in Norwegian nihilism in a morbidly long death-shot. It is, however, the following shots of the city's unregistering continuation that gives the ending its heavy, heavy weight. This really is a very hard film.
A fire extinguisher gets introduced on a bike ride, which seems only to be there to loan the film some different, cinematic shots, which is a little curious but fine.
The suspense of the film relates to Anders' life. Only for a few seconds did I have reason to think, whether that might be a bit slight for an entire feature. Trier wrote the screenplay with Eskil Vogt (Blind (2014)), based on the novel Will O' the Wisp (1931) by Pierre Drieu la Rochelle (The Man on Horseback/L'Homme à Cheval (1943)).
Oslo, August 31st is an incredibly good film and surely one of the best recent Norwegian films. Trier is out with his first English-language film at the moment, Louder than Bombs, a drama with Jesse Eisenberg and other prominent actors.


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Anders Danielsen Lie's look speaks volumes in Joachim Trier's Oslo, August 31st

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: At least 1.4 mil. $
= Uncertainty
[But most likely a huge flop. Norway is perhaps the world's most expensive country, and 1.4 mil. $ basically just buys you a cup of coffee there. The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes. The budget was low but isn't publicized, and the box office result is based on the figures from 9 countries, publicized on Box Office Mojo. The film may have gone to other countries as well. It was biggest in Norway, where it made an impressive 0.9 mil. $, and it also was a minor hit in France with 0.2 mil. $. It made 0.1 mil. $ in the US, where Roger Ebert named it the 9th best film of the year.]

What do you think of Oslo, August 31st?