Film

Blind

Name: Blind
Genre: Drama
Released: 2014
Cast: Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Henrik Rafaelsen, Vera Vitali, Marius Kolbenstvedt, Stella Kvam Young

Drama
Very dark
Slow-burning

A Norwegian film about a woman adjusting to sudden blindness, trapped in her apartment with her husband and her own fractured mind. Director Eskil Vogt treats psychological unraveling with unflinching intimacy, blurring the line between what's real, imagined, and desired. It's claustrophobic and searching—not comforting, but genuinely fascinating.

TMDb rating

3.1

If you liked this

A Separation2011

A masterwork about a marriage imploding under pressure, told with moral complexity and no easy answers. Like Blind, it finds drama in small spaces and the gap between what couples say and what they feel.

But Deliberately paced and emotionally exhausting. Some viewers find the slow accumulation of grievances tedious rather than gripping.

The Worst Person in the World2021

Another Norwegian film about interior life and desire—specifically a woman navigating love, ambition, and her own contradictions across four years. Equally intimate with the self-sabotaging thoughts we don't say aloud.

But Funny and lighter in tone, which might feel like a comedown if you want the psychological darkness to persist throughout.

Repulsion1965

Polanski's masterpiece about a woman alone in an apartment as her mind fractures. The visual language of isolation and psychological disintegration is cinema's gold standard. Essential viewing if you want the bloodline of Blind.

But Made in 1965 and it shows—black and white, deliberately artificial soundscape. The pacing will test modern viewers used to faster cutting.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Blind

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles1976

Both films trust that watching someone's small rituals and gestures is enough to understand her entire inner world. Both are about control—Ingrid's apartment, Jeanne's routine—and what happens when that control breaks.

Chantal Akerman's three-hour film of a housewife going through her daily routines: cooking, cleaning, sex work. It sounds mundane and it is—but in that routine is everything about power, control, and the interior life. The connection to Blind is structural: both are about what happens when a woman's carefully controlled world begins to fracture.

But Three hours of a woman cooking and cleaning. There is virtually no plot, no dialogue, no score. If you need conventional drama, this will feel like punishment.

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles poster

Under the Skin2014

Glazer's hypnotic, unsettling film about desire and predation. Like Blind, it's interested in what happens when we look and are looked at, and what we fantasize about when we think no one's watching.

But Deliberately enigmatic and plotless. If you need narrative momentum or explanation, this will frustrate you intensely.

The Souvenir2019

Joanna Hogg's semi-autobiographical film about a young woman slowly understanding that the man she loves is exploiting her. Told from her perspective as she fails to see what's obvious—a kind of blindness to reality.

But Glacially slow and focuses entirely on small gestures and dialogue. Some find it self-indulgent; others think that's exactly the point.

Mulholland Drive2001

Lynch's masterwork about fantasy, desire, and the stories we tell ourselves. Like Blind, it refuses to cleanly separate reality from what the protagonist needs to imagine, and it gets richer with questions unanswered.

But Three hours, deliberately obscure structure, and the ending punishes viewers looking for plot clarity. It's a puzzle with no single solution.

The Fire Within1963

Malle's devastating portrait of depression and alienation through a man's final days. It has Blind's interest in the interior life of someone slowly disappearing, viewed with compassion and no narrative flinching.

But Bleak to the point of pain. The entire film moves toward a conclusion we sense coming, which some experience as cathartic and others as relentlessly grim.

Dogville2003

Von Trier's allegorical provocation about a woman taken in by a small town, then slowly exploited. It has Blind's interest in how isolation and dependency warp relationships, and what people do when they think consequences don't exist.

But Visually stark and experimental; performed on a near-empty stage. Some find it pretentious; others find the artificiality essential to the cruelty.

Come and See1985

Both are about how experience fundamentally alters perception. Ingrid loses her sight; the boy in Come and See loses his innocence. Both films are interested in what it means to be unable to unsee—or in Ingrid's case, to live without sight and with only imagination.

Klimov's devastating Soviet film about a boy caught in war. Utterly different subject matter, but it shares Blind's refusal to look away from psychological damage, its interest in how perception is traumatized, and its willingness to be grotesque and painful rather than beautiful.

But One of cinema's most horrific films—not in gore but in moral weight. If you're watching Blind for something contemplative and searching, not harrowing, this is a significant escalation.