Product Details

• Actors: Gavin Attwood, Sally Berg, Sonam Bhumtso, Dachung, Jeff Evans
• Directors: Lucy Walker
• Producers: Steven Haft, Sybil Robson, Tricia Cooklin
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Unknown (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Image Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: January 13, 2009
• Run Time: 104 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001HB1K1Y
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,261 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Blindsight" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Impaired vision presents challenges under the best of circumstances, but the Tibetan teenagers of Blindsight must also contend with poverty and discrimination. In their culture, people believe that blindness results from demonic possession or crimes committed in a past life. Fortunately, German-born Sabriye Tenberken, blind since 12, founded Lhasa’s Braille Without Borders to provide them with education and self-reliance. In 2004, she invites American author Erik Weihenmayer to visit. After he lost his sight, his father encouraged him to climb mountains, and Erik would go on to scale the world’s seven highest summits. Through photographs and home movies, director Lucy Walker (Devil's Playground) captures Sabriye and Erik as children; it’s clear they enjoyed distinct advantages over their Tibetan counterparts. Erik believes Sabriye's students would also benefit from climbing, so they select six, pair them with guides, and begin preparations for a trek up the giant looming in their backyard: Mt. Everest (specifically Lhakpa-Ri). Things proceed according to plan until Tashi, a former beggar, starts to lag behind. Then Kyila falls prey to altitude sickness. The Western team finds themselves with a dilemma: Should they send down the sick and continue climbing, or call off the expedition? At this point, Walker's documentary shifts from a sociological study to an unlikely thriller. Though she neglects to explore some avenues in sufficient depth, like the death of Erik's mother, Blindsight is moving, suspenseful, and inspiring--and the sequence in which the kids sing "Happy Together" surely ranks as one of cinema's most transcendent. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

BLINDSIGHT - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Missiologically Helpful Film: Blindsight, January 16, 2009

By 

Cody C. Lorance "Missiologist and Church Planter" (CAROL STREAM, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blindsight (DVD)

Recently, I had the opportunity to watch a documentary film called Blindsight. This is a story about six blind Tibetan teenagers (and their Western guides) who attempt to climb the 23,000 ft Lhakpa Ri - that's right next door to Mt. Everest in the Himalayas. And, overall, I found the film to be compelling, entertaining, moving, and thought-provoking. My attention was definitely locked in from the first scene and I was certainly moved by the story of these courageous teens. So, it's a very watchable movie, and I think you've got to start there.
Now let's talk missiology. There are a couple of missiologically significant themes in the film that are worth mentioning here. The first has to do with how Tibetan society deals with issues related to physical disability. Blindsight portrays these blind teens as outcasts from a Tibetan society that provides an explanation for their disability that blends Buddhist and folk religious ideas. Both thaumaturgical (e.g. evil spirits) and karmic (i.e. bad deeds done in past lives being punished in this life) are blamed for their blindness, resulting in a stigma that forces the children to the lowest places in the community. I was especially shocked to hear one Tibetan woman curse two of the boys by saying, "You aren't worthy to eat your father's corpse!" If I had a nickel . . .
A second missiologically significant theme is hinted at on the back of the DVD case in a quote attributed to Entertainment Weekly that mentions the "importance of journey versus destination." I think that in this regard the film does a good job of highlighting the U.S. American emphasis on accomplishment and finishing (represented well by the perspectives and attitudes of the American guides) over against an emphasis on journey. There is one memorable voiceover in which Sabriye Tenberken (the German woman who started the blind school in Lhasa where all the teens lived and studied), talks about how some of the kids had told her that they wished the climb hadn't been so rushed. They felt that there wasn't enough time to smell and feel and listen or to sing songs and tell stories to each other. This is a great example of the difference between monochronic and polychronic values - the Americans pushing the team on and on each day with specific goals and deadlines; the Tibetans wishing to sit awhile and listen to sound of the yak bells or entertain each other with stories. Well, I don't want to spoil it for you, so I won't go into any more details about how this theme is developed in the movie.
My biggest criticism of Blindsight was how the film gradually became too focused (in my opinion) on the Westerners and especially on the conflicts they were having with each other along the way. There is value here, of course, as it allows us to see how unconsciously Westerners can assume a dominant position vis-à-vis non-Westerners. It was particularly interesting to watch what seemed to be team meetings being conducted during which only the Westerners were talking, debating, and deciding. At one point an American guide said, "Well, finally I feel like we're communicating." This is in a tent full of Westerners and Tibetans, but what he meant was that the Germans and the Americans were "finally communicating." I guess I just wished that the filmmakers would have gotten more interviews and voiceovers with the teenagers, so I wouldn't have to guess so much at how they were processing the experience.
So . . . this is a good, compelling, moving and inspiring film that makes just good movie-watching on the one hand, but also provides rich fodder for missiological reflection and discussion on the other. I especially recommend it for use in classroom and training settings. People working in a folk religious or Tibetan context will find this particularly interesting as will those working cross-culturally among people with disabilities.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Straightforward and touching, April 27, 2010

By 

Angela - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blindsight (DVD)

One of the most touching, almost sublime, moments in Lucy Walker's documentary, Blindsight, is a meditative exploration of some ice formations on the side of Mount Everest. The film, which follows blind mountaineer, Erik Weihenmayer, as he leads six blind Tibetan teenagers up to the 23,000 foot summit of Lhakpa Ri (practically next door to Everest's summit), spends a lot of time musing about what they're doing: the challenges of being blind, the importance of building self-esteem in young people, the clash of Western and Tibetan notions of success. As the teenagers and Weihenmayer get closer and closer to the summit, and as things get harder and harder (Weihenmayer is the only experienced mountaineer), a new question pops up: is reaching the summit really the most important thing?

It's then that we have this meditative moment by the ice, when the kids teach the mountaineering crew that sometimes stopping to soak in a moment is much more important than pushing your way through to an arbitrary goal. The joy on everyone's faces, the lilting background music and the vibe of hard-earned peace and contemplation is absolutely lovely. Much more than anything else in the film, this scene captures the bittersweet beauty of what these kids are doing and what it means.

Documentaries are few and far between here in PPCCland, mostly because we have trouble finding them and then, have trouble reviewing them. You can't really talk about characterization, narrative and aesthetics when the film is, by definition, only supposed to document the facts. Of course, documentary-making is just another form of storytelling. Blindsight's storytelling is normally straightforward: a swift prologue-type section with introductions and interviews of the team, followed by a more day-by-day accounting of their trek up the mountain.

Layered over the trek is a back story of one of the team's young men, Tashi, who is the group's outcast and weak link: always trailing behind, he has difficulty during the trek and has an unfortunate background (he was a street kid before joining the Braille Without Borders school). Tashi, who quickly becomes the film's special hero, is moody and troubled, yet also cheeky and joyous. You can't help but root for his success. And in scenes running parallel to his climb up the mountain, we follow Tashi's journey into a remote town of Szechuan Province, China, for a long-overdue reunion with his estranged family.

Tashi's story is occasionally likened to Weihenmayer's background as well: there are touching moments when Weihenmayer remembers his own gangly, awkward youth, his own feelings of being an outcast (Weihenmayer went blind at 13). Watching Weihenmayer's growing closeness and concern for Tashi - especially as it becomes increasingly unclear whether Tashi will be able to make it up the mountain - is very touching.

While there are some interesting discussions about differing cultural attitudes towards blindness, and the dynamic between the American mountaineering experts and the Tibetan kids and workers is fascinating and even a little ambiguous at times, the documentary on the whole sends a crisp, powerful message about working hard and winning big. The simple, humanistic film is much more interested in showing the different back stories of the kids and their different personalities than making any overly-philosophical statement about disability or culture. For that reason, we think this film will be both inspiring and touching for a very broad audience.

*Review originally posted at The Post-Punk Cinema Club: [...].

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars five stars of ragged hope, February 12, 2009

By 

C. I. Rowat (London, UK.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blindsight (DVD)

I will not disagree with the previous reviewers about how this film could be improved: there are some odd editing decisions, and - as the previous reviews have noted - various faults: yes, we would like to hear more from the children, and less from the adults.

But these faults may simply be the film's honest exposure of the faults in the underlying story and people: two groups of people that have never met before plan to climb a Himalayan mountain with blind children. While planning and communication in advance can avoid some problems, the real tests will come at altitude.

Whatever the film's faults - and I do not include the open questions that still niggle at me afterwards - this film has moved me like no other in years: at every turn, we see people struggling not just back to their feet after huge blows, but to the roof of the world. We also see the thousand small ways in which, over the years, they have been helped to get to this point. As a result of watching this film, I know that more is possible - and hope that I too might find my Lhakpa Ri. Thank you for reminding me to see.