Notes on Blindness | Rotten Tomatoes

Notes on Blindness

Released Nov 16, 2016

1 hr. 30 min.

Documentary

List

95%

40 Reviews

Tomatometer

70%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

In 1983, when writer John Hull goes blind just before the birth of his son, he starts making a diary on audio cassette to make sense of all the changes.

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Critics Consensus

Notes on Blindness traces one man's difficult journey and emerges with a reflection on the human condition that's as uplifting and edifying as it is simply moving.

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raphael g

Super cool concept for making a movie, and a beautiful story.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

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Audience Member

It's OK quite interesting and for me the dubbed voices do actually work. Wanted to like it more.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/26/23

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Audience Member

This is a strange and powerful film. It's basically a documentary, with the parts of the people involved portrayed on screen by actors, lip-synching the real life words of the participants. It makes for an other-worldly experience, that's gives a deep insight in to the at once familiar but also utterly alien the main protagonist is forced to inhabit. The film relates the experiences of John Hull, a writer and theologian who found himself losing his sight just before the birth of his first child. To make sense of his experiences he taped his thoughts - first, reflections on the more practical part of his experiences. As someone who needed to read for his work, for example, he went searching for audiobooks of the academic texts he needed. He discovered that it was assumed that 'blind people don't read big books'; so with an army of friends and families, a library of his books was committed to tape. As time passes he discovers he needs to understand the condition itself, not just the practicalities of it; he'd found himself so busy preparing for and learning to live with blindness that it prevented him for understanding it. He had to learn to think about his condition: 'If I didn't understand, it would defeat me'. So begins a series of profound reflections which, as a person who has lived with chronic pain for 20 years, I find very resonant and truthful. The person offering a miracle cure (hypnotherapy) who can't accept John's insistence that his eyes won't just grow back; the people who say he doesn't want his sight back because he seems to have adjusted to it. If we complain about our condition, we're classified as defeatist moaners; if we accept it (as we have to), we've given up (especially as Christians). Onlookers seem only to have categories for the heroic overcomer or pathetic victim; there's no room for someone to keep on, keeping on. The reflection that 'everyday I wake up, I've lost my sight again'; a painfully truthful expression of the reality that every day I wake up, I'm in pain again. The reflection on why bad things happen to Christians - 'why shouldn't they happen to me?'; a line I've used myself. This struggle seems to be a bigger one for the people around us, then for the sufferers ourselves. As he says 'I don't regard faith as a shield against the normal ups and downs of life'. His child screams; they rush to discover it's a finger trapped in a door, but even so he's impotent. "The discovery that you're useless is not a nice discovery for a father to make'; how true. I lie some days in pain, aware of my enforced physical absence from my children and my apparent uselessness as a result. There are many more moments to reflect on, but the surreal and moving conclusion is the most weighty, as John's dreams are shown melting in to on-screen reality. He ends at a point where blindness (chronic illness) either enables in the sufferer some kind of rebirth, or it destroys you. As he says this, him and his family are soaked in rain, a symbolic baptism and regeneration. It's truthful, healing and challenging all at once. A unique and wonderful film, to be lived with and drunk deep from - especially for chronic illness sufferers and those who travel with them.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/07/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Incredibly moving film, with an in-depth view on blindness. The use of John Hull's actual cassette tape recordings as the dialogue for the film works wonders. As I actually met John Hull, as he was a member of my Church I can say the main actor did a wonderful job of imitating all his characteristics. Definitely check this film out.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/22/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Feels like beating up a (blind) puppy criticising this but crikey I found this dull. Maybe the book it more interesting but I found this laboured, a bit poncey if I'm honest and completely un-engaging.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/04/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Sad stuff about a young father, writer and teacher going blind. It's labled as a documentary, but it's more like a biography if you ask me. It's done with extraordinary shots. Usage of colors, dimming and haze is magnificent along with ace camerahandling. It looks like a Malick painting at times. Amazing sounds here too. I've read it was made in two versions, one ment for blind people. I saw the version without the extra sounding for blind, but I was still amazed. Great acting, and it's very cool with true voiceovers taken from tapes he recorded in real life. Lipsynching old tapes must be quite a challange, especeially making it fit and blend into the rest of the story. Solid and inspiring film. I'm recently getting more impressed with what Netflix can come up with. 7.5 out of 10 cassettes.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/17/23

Full Review

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Peter Middleton

Director

James Spinney

Director

Marilyn Hull

Herself

John M. Hull

Himself

Miranda Beinart-Smith

Imogen

Eileen Davis

Madge Hull

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Leah Pickett

Chicago Reader

English writer and theologian John Hull, who went blind in the early 1980s and kept an audio diary of his experience, is the subject of this thought-provoking film, which takes an unusual if not always successful approach to the documentary form.

Jan 5, 2017

Full Review

Katie Walsh

Los Angeles Times

Achingly poignant and startlingly immediate

Dec 1, 2016

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John DeFore

Hollywood Reporter

A deeply sensitive interpretation of the subject's reflective testament on disability.

Nov 21, 2016

Full Review

Vladan Petkovic

Cineuropa

Immensely creative and poetic.

Sep 1, 2020

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Steven Prokopy

Third Coast Review

The film is ambitious, carefully and skillfully crafted, and tirelessly constructed into a magnificent journey of the heart and mind.

Apr 30, 2020

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Jeremy Polacek

Hyperallergic

Adventurous and intimate and unworried by the wall dividing fiction and nonfiction, Peter Middleton's and James Spinney's debut, Notes on Blindness, is a wondrous film, a thing of magic and a deeply human document.

Feb 4, 2020

Full Review

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Synopsis

In 1983, when writer John Hull goes blind just before the birth of his son, he starts making a diary on audio cassette to make sense of all the changes.

Director: Peter Middleton, James Spinney
Executive Producer: Richard Holmes
Screenwriter: Peter Middleton, James Spinney
Distributor: Bond/360
Genre: Documentary
Original Language: English (United Kingdom)
Release Date (Theaters): Nov 16, 2016, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Apr 13, 2017
Sound Mix: Dolby Atmos