60
It never quite gets inside the head of its subject, writer/theologian John Hull. Thankfully, Hull’s observations – an audio diary – provide plenty of insight and engagement.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
Village Voice by Alan Scherstuhl
By having their actors lip-sync along to Hull and his family's own voices, the staged re-creations that so often pad nonfiction films here achieve a peculiar formalist beauty.
80
Notes on Blindness raises fascinating questions about our reliance on visual memory aids and the amount to which we truly experience the world around us.
80
Time Out London by Dave Calhoun
Hull clearly had a profound and lucid response to his blindness, and this thoughtful, illuminating film goes some way to inhabiting his thoughts.
38
Slant Magazine by Diego Semerene
Its fatal mistake is to make up for blindness, instead of embracing it as something other than a liability.
63
RogerEbert.com by Odie Henderson
If the subject interests you, don’t let my mildly negative review dissuade you from going to see it. I would like to see it again myself, but this time in the version I can share with several of my relatives whose vision is no longer present.
80
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
It is a thoroughly absorbing and moving film, especially when Hull has a dream about recovering his sight and seeing his children. The tone is sober, unflashy, and Hull’s reflections on God are presented without any hectoring or special pleading. Affecting and profoundly intelligent.
90
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
The tone of the narration is so wrenchingly honest that the film never lapses into self-pity or relies on mystical platitudes.
80
A seamless patchwork of reminiscences, tracing John’s voyage into darkness with an astute and sensitive cinematic imagination.
90
Screen International by Wendy Ide
Hull’s wisdom, and the agility of his insights as he struggles to make sense of his condition, form the basis of this elegant, evocative and deeply affecting documentary.