March 31st, 2019
Wordcount: 1750 words
Blind Sun (2015), directed by Joyce Nashawati, is set in the supposedly near future of Greece, where water is scarce and a heatwave is setting in. The film can be seen as a minimalist psychodrama steeped in paranoia and socio-political dynamics. As the narrative of the film is guided through the main character in the film, an immigrant by the name of Ashraf, played by the Palestinian actor (Zaid Bakri), who is looking after a luxurious French family’s villa while its owners are away. However, strange things occur, as he is allegedly being followed by a “shadow”. Or is it all just a fiction of his imagination created by the lack of water…
However, this way of storytelling, visualizing a form of imagination through Ashraf’s hallucinations, can be considered as a metaphorical web of constructed meaning through several encrypted paradoxes as set out by the director own vision upon contemporary reality. Especially in regards to the paradox between nature and reality, as for global warming and Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis. Which is depended upon the spectator’s imagination itself in order to clarify these portrayed allegories and analogies within the film. Within an interview for Screen Daily Nashawati points out to the construction of the film as for “it’s like putting a magnifying glass on some parts of reality to make them take over”[1].
Within this film response, I will do an attempt to clarify several metaphorical paradoxes. To begin with “magnifying” the film title itself, in which the metaphor of the blinding sun may refer to the sun it’s glare, as for not only on the camera lens but also upon the vision of the Spectator itself. Similarly to the saying of not to look directly into the sun as it will blind you. Presuming that there is a moment of consciousness to be able to re-focus upon that, which is set out to be right in front of us but comprehended through our loss of clarity.
Which draws upon the foreground/background within the film. As Slavoj Žižek argues that “the true focus is there in the background and it’s crucial to leave it as a background. It’s the paradox of anamorphosis if you look at the thing too directly, the oppressive social dimension, you don’t see it. You can see it in an oblique way only if it remains in the background.”[2] As for the use of the “slow burn” within the film, the spectator receives the time to explore the background. In this way, the background keeps becoming the foreground, again in a metaphorical sense. In which scopophilia end epistemophilia as Miriam Hansen, paraphrased in the article by Zahid R. Chardhary[3], to be the twin drives of cinematic pleasure. As for the use of allegory as a tool to interpreted or decipher political or hidden meaning within this film, in which a whirlwind of and cross-references to the horror of both nature and the human are set out. I will magnify on several screens from the film and draw relations towards three theories described in the readings for this week.
Bordering, borderless and borders
The “bordering” of humans in relation to the borderless nature. As for the spreading of both water and fire (global warming), could perhaps be more terrifying, in terms of the almost uncontrollability of containing this spread behind physical borders, in relation to the fear of humans spreading or crossing borders.
To draw a connection to the utopic view upon “borderless” Europe. As Yosefa Loshitzky[4] argues Europe being a fortress ever as the European anxieties about the new “other within”, perceived as “the enemy within”.
Which in the film draws upon the villa, as for being the fortress, Ashraf is watching over. The villa is protected with surveillance cameras and surrounded by a big fence, a physical border, separating the property from the possible danger from outside. However, the threat of Ashraf’s possible stalker, portrayed by a silhouette of a shadow, envisioned within his hallucinations to be wandering around the villa and surrounding property. Supposing that the shadow is a mere representation within this context of the “enemy within”, as in order to protect himself, Ashraf locates himself on the other side of the fence, as the danger stays concealed within the fortress of the villa.
Imagination, hallucination, and reality
In relation to casting “reality”, a shadow can be seen as proof of an object to exist. Ever as every shadow is cast by something (David Sanson[5]). As Ashraf is trying to reveal the source of the shadow, repeatedly shown through strange encounters. In which the figure of the “stranger” is portrayed, as Sandra Ponzanesi points out to be that which is produced, not as that which we fail to recognize, but as that which we have already recognized as a stranger. “In the gesture of recognizing the one that we do not know, the one that is different from ‘us’, we flesh out the beyond, and give it a face and form.”[6] Which can be visually resembled within the scene in which Ashraf steps out of the bathtub and gazes through his own reflection within the mirror, in which he identifies himself with the stranger.
As for that, the representation of the shadow may be another cross-reference in relation to Plato’s “Allegory of the cave”[7]. In relation to the analogy of the sun, in which the sun is a metaphor for the nature of reality, as for the visible realm, the sun stands to sight and the things we see. However, in the allegory of the cave, Plato is trying to make us understand that we see shadows and we think they are the real thing. Thus, the main theme of the allegory is that we are ignorant about the true nature of reality. Ever as for the fire within the cave, casting the shadows, representing the prisoners’ limitation to knowledge as they see it. The fire blinds them from the truth that lies beyond what they know, which gives them a false reality about the world. There is a lot to take away from this allegory in relation to the metaphorical meaning expressed within the film, such as the chaining of the prisoners, intending no other than the “bordering” or imprisoning of immigrants. However, within the allegory of the cave, there is the brave prisoner who climbs out of the cave to discover the real world. Which in the scene near the end of the film can be resembled by Ashraf “fighting fire with fire” by literally setting the villa on fire. Leaving the imagination of the shadow behind, as he walks through the gate, and crosses the border to the “real world”.
Elsewhere, the Non-place and Heterotopia
In regards to the saying of “there is no place like home”, as Ashraf is positioned to be the caretaker within someone else’s home, but for the time being, the villa can be perceived as his closest indication of “his place”. However as previously described, in an attempt to escape his stalker, he flies off to another place to seek safety, the village’s Christian church.
In particular, both places as visualized within the film, the villa, and the church, could be defined under the concept of “the non-place”, as a place elsewhere. Sandra Ponzanesi elaborates upon Mark Augé’s[8] definition of Non-places, as to be places ascribed to a world, a world thus surrendered to solitary individuality, to the fleeting, the temporal and the ephemeral. Ever so within the church scene, the priest asks Ashraf what he is doing in “his” church. Ashraf is positioned to explain himself, as he fell asleep and elaborates he needed some rest and tries to find reasoning for the strange events that have happened in regards to the threat of his stalker. However by questioning his reasoning for being there, the definition of the Non-place does not stand in line with finding solitude within the place of the church, ever as it is considered to be someone else’s place, “his”, namely of either the priest or the container of a specific form of religion (Christianity). As the non-place is set against the church’s Durkheimian notion of the anthropological place as an organic sociality rooted in space and time with shared meanings and notions of personhood.
After the church, Ashraf again flies off to another place, the Apollo hotel. In this particular scene, the sun makes room for the moon, which could lead to “safety” from the threat of his stalker, as the loss of light vanishes the shadow casting. In terms of being a Non-place, the hotel can be considered as such, as for being a place where individuals function as passengers or customers or both at the same time, immersing themselves in the chance anonymity of a space without history, as if trapped and frozen in a time unmarked by events happenings in the present. However, Ponzanesi[9] argues that Non-places can be inhabited and appropriated and can be regarded as alternative venues for hospitality where the ‘host’, who is usually in a position of domination and control, becomes dependent on the ‘guests’. Which in relation to all three places draws a distinction between the host and its guest. As for the villa, to consider Ashraf being dependent on his hallucination of the shadow, ever as the shadow is mere an intruder, a non-invited guest. In regards of the church, the priest is the host of “his” place, which does make me argue the church being the place of God and a place for all, as Ashraf almost is portrayed as an unwanted guest. As for the hotel, the venue itself can be considered as the host of capitalism, inviting the guests of consumerism.
With the ultimate relic of the complimentary pitchers of tap water on top of the bar. Ever as not to neglect the multiple metaphorical references made in the film in relation to the water, which to sum up briefly; the water shortage, sweat, the (empty) swimming pool, the ocean, the well, the holy water, drinking water, the bathtub, ….
However to stay within the allegory of the Non-place, both the ending ever as the beginning of the film starts with the screen of the sea. As for the ending scene, Ashraf finds final solitude within the unconstrained place set out by nature, the international waters. Which may draw upon the ultimate physical equivalent of the Non-place, namely the ocean. To conclude that this screen can be considered the ultimate vision of blurring and indicating boundaries by water, as the foreground/background literally somewhat blends into one another, in which the border between the land and air becomes separated by the water.
Allegory Archive
Archeology / Religion / Mythology (waterwell)
Sun / Moon
Face of Apollo
Blinding glare
Animals
Fire and Smoke
Water and Sweat
To be expanded..
WORKS CITED:
Blind Sun (Joyce A. Nashawati, 2015)
[1] Brown, Colin. “Joyce Nashawati, Blind Sun”. In Screen Daily. 2015.
URL: https://www.screendaily.com/interviews/joyce-nashawati-blind-sun/5098002.article
[2] Žižek, Slavoj. “Commentary on Children of Men”. 2006.
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbgrwNP_gYE
[3] Chaudhary, Zahid R. “Humanity Adrift: Race, Materiality, and Allegory in Alsonso Cuarón’s Children of Men”. In Camera Obscura. 2006.
[4] Loshitzky, Yosefa, “Introduction: Screening Strangers in Fortress Europe” In Screening Strangers: Migration and Diaspora in Contemporary European Cinema. 2010.
[5] Sanson, David. “Notes on Shadows”. 2016
[6] Ponzanesi, Sandra. “Europe in Motion: Migrant Cinema and the Politics of Encounter”. 2011.
[7] Plato. “The Allegory of the Cave”. In The Republic. 380 BC.
[8] Augé, Marc. Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. 1995
[9] Ponzanesi, Sandra. “The Non-Places of Migrant Cinema in Europe”
vvz204 