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Fantastic Fest capsule: ‘Blind’
Min Soo-ah (Ha-Neul Kim) wants to be a police officer. So much so that young police academy student even feels the need to dictate her brother’s whereabouts. After forcibly removing him from an underground dance competition, Min Soo-ah and her brother suffer a catastrophic accident thanks to her overzealous protection and his rambunctiousness that leads to his death and her loss of vision.
The narrative then jumps ahead three years to find a blind Min Soo-ah living a stubborn yet admirable life of independence, aided by the touching companionship of her guide dog, and heart-broken by her banishment from the force due to the fatal accident years earlier. One dark and rainy night on the way home from the orphanage where she and her brother were raised, Min Soo-ah accepts a ride from a man whom she believes to be a luxury cab driver. When this mysterious and dashing stranger hits what Min Soo-ah believes is a person in the middle of the rain-slicked road, she abandons her ride and flees.
The soft-spoken and intuitive young woman then becomes the primary witness for a well-intentioned and hyperactive police officer who feels stymied by Min Soo-ah’s impairment. He soon realizes that Min Soo-ah has powers of insight beyond that of the sighted, and along with another young man, slowly pieces together the mystery of the hit-and-run driver who has much more to hide than he could ever imagine.
Director Ahn Sang-hoon capably uses sounds to connect the viewer with Min Soo-ah’s experience, providing an aural window into the protagonist’s reality. Action scenes are paced wonderfully in this game of cat-and-mouse that is heightened by the fact that the audience is often privy to lurking danger that Min Soo-ah can not see. The climactic scenes effectively blend visible danger and terror cloaked in darkness.
The movie does contain saccharine elements — Min Soo-ah finds in a young witness to the accident a surrogate for her lost brother — and the soundtrack relies on some corny keys and chimes for emotional effect, but the movie does not rush to offer an abundance of happy answers. There is plenty of collateral damage here, rendered with stark violence.To echo a sarcastic line from the man who introduced the film, I can already envision this thriller being remade for American audiences.
In order for any kind of remake to succeed, however, it would need an actress who can give as vulnerable and captivating performance as Ha-Neul Kim does here.
‘Blind’ screens again Thursday at 1:15 p.m.
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