Blind Spot – Blindsone (2018)

Directed by: Tuva Novotny | 98 minutes | drama | Actors: Pia Tjelta, Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Per Frisch, Oddgeir Thune, Nora Mathea Øien, Carl Munck, Teodor Barsnes-Simonsen, Marianne Krogh, Ellen Heyerdahl Janzon, Vilde Storetvedt, Tuva Thorgersen, Hilde Linseth Stømer

Director Tuva Novotny, who features as an actress in ‘Eat Pray Love’, ‘Borg McEnroe’ and ‘Annihilation’, uses a rigorous principle in ‘Blind Spot’. A real-time description of the daily life of teenager Tea (Øien) ends after half an hour life-threatening in the emergency room, where mother Maria (Tjelta) reacts hysterically. Is there actually any acting in ‘Blind Spot’?, you wonder. Documentary is a wrong description, the action is indeed dramatically intensified.

Not as extreme as Lars von Trier does in ‘Breaking the Waves’, for example, ‘Blind Spot’ lacks the bigger story. Novotny tells a small, intense story, initially that of Maria. While the mother is calmed down by hospital staff, the fate of Tea, whom we naturally care about as viewers, unfolds out of the picture. A dramatic choice, because a filmmaker can decide otherwise. We are now sitting on Maria’s skin, who hyperventilates and then calms down again.

That is oppressive, because a parent can also experience such situations. One will identify; the other will irritate it. Then the camera moves to the OR, with its clinical beeps. The focus is not on Tea, but on the nurse who has to inform the mother about the situation. This too is a dramatic choice that is oppressive. Novotny has no intention of reassuring the viewer. It must feel fear and doubt. Confirmation of this assumption is found in the arrival of the father (Christiansen), who wants to see his daughter but is not allowed.

Fifteen minutes takes a long time, but that is also the case when you as a parent are confronted with such a situation in empirical reality. Mother calms down when father faints, there are no ordinary people here. But you don’t see it, because the conditions are extreme. Does Novotny simply want to tell you how these people deal with extreme situations? The undersigned wants more context, because everyone will react differently in extreme situations. Novotny keeps it respectful and the film falters.