Blind Sun (2015) Online

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.

A slow burn. I dare say it because here it's not a metaphorical cliché, it's the actual plot of this indie!

Set in Greece in a near dystopic future, we follow Ashraf Idriss (Palestinian actor Ziad Bakri), an immigrant hired to house-sit a villa for the summer, ensuring its safety amidst rising hooliganism and brutality whilst personally suffering the oppression that attempts to counter the tense lawlessness of a heat-wave-baked world increasingly deprived of its primary resource: water.

Sure enough, the standoffish Ashraf faces increasing threats, scared to be in the villa and afraid to act after having lost his papers to a racist cop, but what's a real menace and what results out of a slowly baking brain?

Told through careful cinematography, editing, and sensibility that lean towards art-house minimalism, this first-time feature for Joyce A. Nashawati marks this Lebanese director as someone possessing tremendous flair for the deeply nuanced yet sharp socio-political allegory, the kind that lets one get away with more style then story.

The horror classification given by some (see Shudder.com) is believable. The menace that looms throughout genuinely takes hold midway and brings us to chilling moments, both of real fear and psychological unease. There's an unsettling atmosphere that reigns, set both by an intriguing soundtrack and a keen exploitation of light in establishing either the threat of a sun-drenched world or of those lurking in shadows.

A tense, unnerving visual treat with a disturbing end, my only complaint is that it's often too easy to forget just how water-deprived and hot a world Ashraf faces and it's never quite justified why he seems to suffer more than all. Watching his "burnout" is engrossing, but we never fully embark on his ride that leads to his solution, albeit we certainly do feel his relief afterwards (up to a point) for, though he's hardly the most likable and pet- friendly of fellows, he does earn our sympathy.

Well worth a watch!

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...

If the extreme cold can make some crazy, the exact opposite is also true. I know; I go bonkers during the daily 100-120 degree, 6+ months here in Arizona year after year.

So, since we're going through yet another gut-punching hot and humid summer, I wanted to watch a Horror-Heat-Wave movie and BAM!, coincidentally, the first category on my Shudder Online Horror Movie Streaming service is a group of Horror-Heat-Wave flicks. And the first one was one I hadn't seen and seemed the most interesting.

Blind Sun felt extremely real for someone like us Phoenicians. They did an excellent job on how hot a desert town can get. It was almost too real for me. Well, the hot parts, anyways.

Slowly, this all-but drifter turned house-sitter loses his mind in the heat. The house he's staying in is supposed to be very richy, despite the poverty town surrounding it, but the A/C keeps going out, the water is turned on/off and even the pool is a big no-no for the fact the town's rationing H20. As stated, it's a slow-burner, no pun and this man dives deeper and deeper into madness.

Live one summer here in Phoenix, and yeah, you'll understand.

While the final act went a little wacko for me, it was a decent movie to watch to know what the hot desert feels like.

***

Final thoughts: Oh, and just to clarify, our Phoenician summers are basically March through November with the first and last month somewhat pleasant, but still can be in the 100s.

Almost nothing happens in this movie: * An immigrant guy takes a job as a housekeeper.

* He sleeps a lot.

* Goes to the pool once.

* Water goes out and he gets his tools and fixes the pipes.

* Goes into town a couple times.

* He sees some shadows a few times.

* Hears some unexplained footsteps.

* Things get messed up in the house a couple times.

* The cat dies.

* He starts hallucinating a little bit it seems.

* He burns down the house.

The end.

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.

Watching this film holed up in my apartment, wrapped in a blanket, sipping tea while it was snowing outside might not have been the best choice. Even considering my viewing environment, the setting and sun soaked feel of this film was quite memorable. Growing up on the beach, I remember that lazy sun feeling, when the heat has turned you into a slug, and everything feels as though it is moving in slow motion. When you can fall asleep in an instant, fall asleep anywhere. The type of heat you have to physically push through. And water is the most amazing and precious thing, a balm to everything, not just the heat.

I can relate to this film on many levels. The main character though, that is a different story. Ziad Bakri is excellent in this, I just do not feel as though he had enough to work with. The film is rich in style but slim on plot and nearly devoid of character development. Still, I recommend this for anyone who enjoys a minimal and stylized unique story. I quite loved how shadows in the daytime were used, resulting in an unease that forced me to keep watching.

Few thoughts of mine on this unexptected pelicular - tl;tr: skip it. // guy has issues. we don't know which ones. sinister, phony policeman making an omionous threat and not leading anywhere. luxurious environment, nice hue, colors. good production value and cut. sexy wife not giving enough screen time. wasting water on face and not drinking, although obviously suffering from thirst/dehydration/hallucinations at one time. always clean short and pants even if sweating like a mf. clean shirt 2 scenes afterwards. running naked which is absolutely fine, but sweating on anothers couch is not. asks in a closed childs room if there's anyone - dead herring. orthodox christian intermezzo, hot girl drives away, he give's a damn about another girl being victimized, gets stoned and gets jerked off by hotty on a beach. movie got some some hints on the refugee situation (bus with kids). i dont know.

i've expected it - it gets into shallow surrealist territory quite suddenly in the last quarter. i can't feel with the protagonist - a tightlipped refugee(maybe, we do not know sadly), throwing a phone at maxim, burning the house of his employer ? why? there is no compassion, no reason. no explanation. whats with the cat ? there's some burning body running from the building, who is he/she? a bit more background on the protagonist would be beneficial storywise. and then... he goes unhappily "swimming" and the viewer is expected to think about this waste of time. i'll have a good nights sleep.

* comments/critic appreciated *

love is all.