Notes on Blindness

Actor Dan Skinner as John Hull in a dramatised scene set to Hull’s words
(Image credit: BBC/Archer’s Mark/Gerry Floyd)

Actor Dan Skinner as John Hull in a dramatised scene set to Hull's words

Actor Dan Skinner as John Hull in a dramatised scene set to Hull's words. A slow-burner, but stick with it because this film about what it is like to be blind is exceptional.

In the early 1980s, after decades of steady deterioration, academic John Hull lost his sight.

He began keeping an audio diary of his thoughts and experiences in an attempt to understand his blindness ‘because if I didn’t understand it, it would defeat me’.

It’s because of Hull’s eloquence that this film is as affecting as it is.

His description of the suffering he is experiencing, and little things, such as the way the rain gives an audible shape to a landscape, beautifully bring this devastating experience to life.