Juraj Lehotsky: Blind Loves
I saw this beautiful film sunday morning in Vienna during the Ex Oriente first session ( www.docuinter.net ).
The director Juraj Lehotsky took the short way from Bratislava to show us a feature length, four chaptered (following the loves stories one after the other) hybrid (observation/arrangement) style documentary about love between blind people.
When the end titles reached the screen, the warm applause started and went on as if it would never come to an end. A masterpiece it is, full of love and beauty.
The director had known the blind couples for years so it was easy for him to establish a relationship with them when the film was to be made. He told us that he developed the situations together with the blind having observed their routines again and again. He asked them to talk or do ”something like this as you often do”, at the same time as he and his cameraman, Juraj Chlpik, worked on a scenography (room, perspective, camera angle, colour) that reflects what it means to live in darkness.
Juraj Lehotsky himself said that the long shots were very much inspired by Austrian Ulrich Seidl – I would add to this: with that very important note that Seidl is a misanthrope and Lehotsky all the way through almost caresses his characters.
The screening was an international sneak preview of a film that is now in the Slovak theatres, waits for an answer from the Cannes Film Festival and will be a hit in festivals all over the world in the next couple of years. And why not in theatres in big cities like Paris?
Juraj Lehotsky: Blind Loves. 77 mins. 2008. 35mm. More info at www.blindloves.com www.arteleria.sk and www.autlookfilms.com
