Blindsight (2008)
Average Rating: 7.6/10
Reviews Counted: 49
Fresh: 48 | Rotten: 1
A powerful glimpse of the possibilities for transcendence in straightforward documentary filmmaking -- and extreme physical disability.
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Critic Reviews: 16
Fresh: 15 | Rotten: 1
A powerful glimpse of the possibilities for transcendence in straightforward documentary filmmaking -- and extreme physical disability.
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Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 950
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Movie Info
Erik Weihenmayer is an athlete and climbing enthusiast who, in the spring of 2001, scaled the summit of Mount Everest. This would be a notable accomplishment for anyone, but Weihenmayer was different from those who had reached Everest's peak before him -- he's been blind since the age of thirteen. Weihenmayer's remarkable story came to the attention of Sabriye Tenberken, an educator who teaches blind teenagers in Lhasa, Tibet. In Tibetan culture, blindness is considered by many to be a curse,
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All Critics (49) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (48) | Rotten (1)
Blindsight is a great example of the emotional dividends that careful photography, sensitive editing and an atmospheric score can deliver.
Top CriticTo see how these conflicts play out, to see how both sides came to realize that they had unexpected things to learn from these remarkable young people, is where Blindsight really makes its mark.
Coying and manipulative.
Watching it, you feel almost as much a winner as the kids themselves.
Walker captures all the dreamy-scary beauty of Everest's upper reaches, as well as numerous mini-dramas about the kids' readiness to approach the summit.
The film is often breathtakingly beautiful, and even as the students triumph over the naysayers, it's melancholy knowing they aren't sharing viewers' experiences of their starkly gorgeous world.
Along with its strong emotional pull and engrossing personalities, Blindsight also features some breath taking images of the Himalayas, and some nerve wrecking scenes that would make those of us who are afraid of heights to start sweating bullets.
memorable portrait of some truly courageous individuals and previously unrevealed insights to Tibetan culture
An important, heart-soaring record of a group of incredibly brave people doing something almost everyone would tell them is impossible.
You wouldn't believe it as fiction but it really is fairly unadorned fact. It is easy to see awards beckoning, and deservedly so because Walker as a film-maker never puts herself in front of her extraordinary subjects.
How they managed the trek defies belief, but in an art-form where superpowers have become passé, it's a stirring reminder of what human powers, against the odds, can achieve.
Lucy Walker's documentary Blindsight is breathtaking twice over. It leaves the audience gasping like a landed guppy at views of snow-coddled Himalayan peaks under ice-blue skies.
The ascent reveals a fascinating clash of values between the more gung-ho Americans (who are determined to reach the top) and the youngsters' remarkable teacher Sabriye Tenberken.
Lucy Walker's inspirational, award-winning documentary, which leaves condescension and treacle out in the cold, emerging as one of the year's most illuminating, heartbreaking, and life-affirming movies.
Lucy Walker's documentary is genuinely stirring.
Walker's ending is fudged both in terms of the narrative and the issues, and she seems to come down, a little feebly, on the "heartwarming" side of things. But what an amazing, and bizarre, story.
A strikingly photographed documentary that unfolds into a story of human achievement and a study of the East-West culture clash.
An accomplished work from documentarian Walker, who uses her battle-against-the odds story to illuminate how Tibetan society mistreats its blind citizens.
Uplifting but never mawkish, and gorgeously shot.
An amazing no-frills inspirational documentary shot with deep feeling and conviction by Lucy Walker.
A blind man climbs to the top of Mount Everest in Blindsight, and that's just the beginning of the drama.
Walker's film is a sure tearjerker, but the sentiments aren't cheap.
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Foreign Titles
- Blind Sight (UK)
