"Imagine" took a while to make it here. The film already premiered in 2012 in the director's country and by now it has already reached the rest of the world. It's Andrzej Jakimowski's third movie, ten years after his first and five years after his second. We follow the paths of a blind man and woman. On a side-note is there anything worse than not being able to see the gorgeous Alexandra Maria Lara!? The most memorable thing about the movie, to me, (besides the occasionally stunning cinematography and landscapes) were the sound effects, which stood out a lot and made it easy even for people in the audience who are able to see to take a dive into the life of blind people. Our acoustic sense is emphasized a lot here and we can feel the different noises almost as vividly as the two main characters. The other besides Lara (probably the one being even more in the center) is played by Edward Hogg: Ian is a blind man teaching the blind with unorthodox methods that always seem to walk the fine line between greatness and danger, sometimes even cross it. Early on he says something like that his old boss really was in favor of his methods, but the new one did not approve at all. It's a nice summary. There's not really the option of indifference when it comes to his teaching style. It's either love or hate in a similar sense of Hugh Laurie's House M.D. His colleagues who are able to see tend to struggle occasionally as well with his mannerisms. Why is he not using a cane? He is blind, so he has to right? One of my favorite scenes even if it was s sad one was where he downright begs for his job and you can easily see that it's more for him than just a profession: it's his dedication. Alexandra Maria Lara gives a decent performance, which serves more as a love interest to the main character than as a showy character with extraordinary depth herself, but that's perfectly fine. I'm a bit uncertain about Melchior Derouet's Serrano though. To me he didn't do much and I have doubts about whether I just did not like the character (which would not be too bad) or did not like the way the actor played the character. In any case I probably could have done without his storyline. To me, he just felt rushed in so that there is a character who's different than all the other students and who is not too impressed by his teacher unlike all the others. It felt a bit just for the sake of it. The scene near the end with the giant ship was one of the weakest of the film in my opinion and this is where it gets a bit lost.
About the end, there is as in so many cases no black and white, but something in between and everybody needs to decide for himself if it's a happy ending or not. A final approval goes to the children who played the blind characters. And did a very credible job doing so. I'm not sure if they were blind themselves or not, but in any case you could make a point for them delivering credible and convincing performances which probably weren't easy to come up with at all. Well done to the child actors.
About the end, there is as in so many cases no black and white, but something in between and everybody needs to decide for himself if it's a happy ending or not. A final approval goes to the children who played the blind characters. And did a very credible job doing so. I'm not sure if they were blind themselves or not, but in any case you could make a point for them delivering credible and convincing performances which probably weren't easy to come up with at all. Well done to the child actors.