Blistering, by Reed Lackey

In turbulent and uncertain times, heightened anxieties and tensions are often described by four metaphorical words: “Things are heating up.” Blind Sun, a recent French film from director Joyce Nashawati takes those words to heart and crafts a story around them that is challenging, reflective, and, at times, quite troubling.

The story tells of Ashraf Idriss, an immigrant struggling to survive amidst a troubled political climate and a pervasive, relentless heat wave. Both the political elements and the environmental ones, however, are pushed to the margins: never fully absent, but rarely addressed specifically. Viewers are left to piece together particular puzzle pieces about why these circumstances are so perilous, which helps to unify the film’s vision and further enhance the primary narrative.

That narrative tells the story of how Ashraf accepts a job tending to a luxurious villa while its owner is vacationing in Paris. What his employers do not know is that his documentation was stolen from him while he was on his way to start the job (by a man either posing as a police officer or a genuinely corrupted one). His time at the villa is plagued by windows into civil unrest, infernal weather conditions, and the ever-growing sense that Ashraf might not be alone on the property.

Due to the one-man nature of the premise, the film carries its action out with minimal dialogue. There are several scenes which occur outside of the villa, but even they feel deliberately restrained from an abundance of dialogue. This places a heavy demand on Ziad Bakri, the actor portraying Ashraf, to communicate a multitude of elements with minimal verbal expression. He meets the challenge fully, and the film is often most profound in the moments when he says absolutely nothing.

The deliberate pacing might limit this film’s fans. Entire segments pass with no dialogue whatsoever and even the moments of genuine suspense often resolve with more dread than actual threat. But for the patient viewer, something genuinely provocative is being said. Because the dread is not dependent on things going bump in the night; no, this terror is happening in the broadest of all possible daylights.

The sun blazes so furiously that at one point Ashraf fears his corneas have been irreparably scorched. The heat is so relentless that water has become a commodity for the wealthy and every drop of sweat feels precious and endangered. And while Ashraf tries to navigate his responsibilities to tend to the villa, he sees periodic evidence that someone is waiting for him behind one of its many doors, possibly with malevolent intentions. He is an outsider in a home he’s been charged to care for, in constant fear of being ousted into an unmerciful wilderness to be baked alive and forgotten.

The film begins with someone violating Ashraf’s rights and, in a sense, stealing his identity. It ends with a decision from Ashraf that is pregnant with the outrage of every person who has ever felt they needed permission to eat and breathe and live and be. The sun shines on the wealthy and the poor, on the righteous and the unrighteous, on the comfortable and the vagabond. But that sun is, nevertheless, a blazing fire, and it is no respecter of persons regarding what it may consume.