Blind Sun (2016)

Sadly Over-hyped

Nice effects though.

From my favorite movies..

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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.

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.