Blindsight
by Derek Holt ~ March 31st, 2008. Filed under: .
For as long as I can remember, there has recurred a peculiar question in my mind. It’s a question of which my own experience could not answer, and which, frankly, I never hoped I could answer by my own experience. In fact, to hope for first-hand knowledge would strike most as downright bonkers. In spite of this, the question has never left me: What does a blind person “see”? It may sound silly even to ask, wondering what someone without sight is able to see, but in my own life of constant sight, it baffles the mind that some survive, even flourish, without it.
Last year in Vienna I had the chance to know briefly the very answer I’d always sought. A museum in town was holding a special exhibition, Licht ins Dunkel, or Light in the Dark, in which the blind would actually guide the sighted through complete darkness. The darkness was cast on an elaborate maze of life simulations, from the market to the riding the bus, and even sitting at the bar. At times I’ve thought perhaps the blind see some kind of blur, a dull color at least, even an idea of who’s around them. But once I was shut completely in darkness, the answer to my question became alarmingly clear: with no light, the blind see absolutely nothing.
A bit bewildered and with a growing headache (perhaps from my eyes straining to see?), I stumbled through the simulated forest, the park, the city streets, put my hand on shapes and tried to identify scents of foods in the market, all the while doing my best (and failing) to follow the voice of our guide.
Granted, a lot of my frustration stemmed from my utter unfamiliarity with this new lack of sense, and in Vienna, a city in many ways tailored to the blind in its subways and on its crosswalks, one who has long known the lack definitely gets along much better than I was. But as difficult as I found a simulated Vienna, I can hardly imagine how the blind find their way in places far less friendly to their plight. Consider for a moment what the blind experience in other cities and cultures, where their streets or underground stations are not paved with them in mind – where indeed the streets are not paved at all, and blind folk carry the stigma of being demon-possessed, fools, and “sinners”, and are told they’ve brought their blindness upon themselves in a former life.
Such is the state in Tibet, where the German-born blind Sabriye Tenberken traveled on her own to collect the scorned blind children of the nation and start the nation’s first school for the blind. This is where we start in Blindsight, a film which chronicles Sabriye’s attempt to offer a handful of her students an opportunity most would have thought never possible in a thousand lifetimes.
She does this by contacting renowned mountain-climber Erik Weihemayer, who made his footprint on the peak of Mt. Everest – the first blind man to do so – back in 2001, and asking him to visit the children. The film actually begins with footage of Erik’s own monumental expedition, only in complete darkness. For about 30 seconds you see nothing and hear everything: the tug of ropes, the worried voices of friends, falling rocks. In accepting Sabriye’s invitation, Erik comes hoping for something more than just a visit, and proposes to take the students on a climbing mission of their own up Everest, to the nearby peak of Lhakpari, a hefty 23,000 ft. above sea level.
It’s interesting to see what follows. Naturally, all the blind children are taken with the high-profile visit from a blind “westerner” who had accomplished so much, and Erik himself seems to have in mind making some sort of statement for the blind by taking these outcasts to the mountaintop. But as the film progresses – as Erik gets to know each kid, and as we the viewers learn the background of each – philanthropic aspirations are slowly shed while genuine love and care grow up in their place. What becomes important is not so much making headlines for the world to read as helping the children themselves rise from the dismal perception of themselves as deserving their blindness and the acceptance of every social stigma that goes with it.
This film is amazing in that it does not leave out the gritty details of the climb. Difficulties arise when Tashi, the oldest and perhaps most unlucky of the students, can’t eat or drink without feeling nauseous, casting doubt on the entire expedition. Do they send one back and let the others reach the top, or do they exemplify solidarity in caring for even the weakest of the tribe, and going down as a group? We see at points like these Western values of enterprise clash with the very design of the blind school. Sabriye and her colleague Paul Kronenberg (co-founder of Braille Without Borders with Sabriye) find themselves questioning what good the climb will do for the children when they haven’t even enough time to slow down and experience what’s around them with the senses they have – hearing, smell, touch and most importantly, imagination.
This film is beautifully photographed and one could watch it for the scenery alone. But to do so would be to miss a message of loving support more powerful than even the blind crossing dark crevasses or mounting a Himalaya, with the whole world able to see.