Blind Spot

Gladki (Kolja Saksida) staggers out of hospital and, in desperation, telephones his sister Lupa (Manca Dorrer) for help. Arriving to find him collapsed, Lupa resolves to wean him off drugs. Renting an apartment in a run down building, to keep their location secret from Gladki's doctor, she manages to get some medication through a friendly social worker. Then, just when Lupa has got Gladki over his cold turkey, she learns that he has full-blown Aids and only wants to die with some semblance of dignity...

A debut feature from young Polish writer/director Hanna Antonina Wojcik-Slak, the Slovenian-shot Blind Spot is the sort of film that is easier to admire, or appreciate, than actually enjoy.

Dull and depressing is the obvious alliteration that springs to mind.

On the upside, Slak has an assured visual sense, which she demonstrates through a number of interesting compositions, like the opening sequence where Gladki escapes from the hospital, or a near-abstract shot of an escalator viewed from sideways on and above.

These moments, however, have a tendency to come across as self-conscious artistry and thereby jar somewhat against the raw, austere, naturalism, rather than emerging as true moments of Bressonian spiritual transcendence growing organically out of it.

Nonetheless, any attempt to combine Ken Loach, Robert Bresson and the visual style of Dogme 95, at least, goes down as a honourable failure, neither lacking in good intentions, nor ambition.