Blind by Tamar Van Den Dop
They say love is blind…The film Blind made by Tamar Van Den Dop is a visually stunning story about love and its supposed blindness. Loving is giving yourself to someone who does not exist. Giving in to a Fantasy, and choosing to reside in it for as long as one is welcome. It is to be transported to a place with no rules, no shame and no self. It stands as the only socially acceptable form of madness.
Blind is a story about Ruben, a boy who goes blind and struggles with the acceptance of his new state. He eventually falls in love with Marie, a woman who is twice his age who believes she is ugly and unworthy of affection. The couple is united when Marie is assigned the job of reading to the frustrated Ruben, caressing his troubled mind and opening the doors of his imagination, and soon the doors of her own. Here, the stories she tells and the lives of Ruben and Marie become entangled. Ruben sees in his blindness the fantastic beauty of Marie that Marie herself hadn't the courage to see with her eyes open. Their relationship is a perfect match: the blind is paired with one who does not wish to be seen.
The tale is beautifully developed. Dialogue is sparse and the images will haunt your imagination. The film leaves the viewers with the clichéd question: what is love? Giving hints that it is but a construct of our minds - a haven where we hide away from our lives and be who we want to be. This movie suggests that Love isn't blind- it closes its eyes 'perchance to dream.'