Anita's Notebook

The movie Blindsight is a documentary about a group of blind children attempting to climb Everest. That description alone was enough to get me to hit Play when I came across it on Netflix.

I mean holy crap what a crazy concept, how could you not want to see (…er find out) what that’s all about?


KARMA AND DEMONS

So the group of kids featured in this movie live in Tibet, where being blind is an even bigger liability than in other places. In Tibetan culture people believe that a person doesn’t become blind by injury or circumstance but through other things like bad karma from crimes committed in a past life or through being possessed by evil demons. Even being a child does not exempt a person from being ostracized due to this stigma and blind children are treated very badly.

A woman from Germany (who is herself blind) heard about the plight of blind children in Tibet and went there to start a school just for them. Before that point there was no schooling available for the blind anywhere in the country.

As a way to encourage the children at the school she told them about a famous mountain climber who had made it to the summit of Everest. He is blind. She and the students eventually decided to invite him to come to their school so they could talk to him in person and maybe even learn how to climb mountains.


TENSION

A plan is devised: The kids will climb a peak on the north side of Everest. They have no experience in climbing, not to mention the fact that they can’t see anything, so each child will have an experienced climber work with them as their teacher and guide to keep them safe.

Sounds peachy right? What could possibly go wrong?

As the movie gets going tension develops between the guides and the teacher of the school. The teacher doesn’t feel like it’s 100% necessary for the children to make it to the top to learn from the experience, whereas the guides feel that it’s extremely important for the children to overcome that obstacle and gain self confidence.

Meanwhile the kids only have a short time to learn the skills needed to climb the mountain and not succumb to any negative circumstances they may face there, you know …little things like falling over icy cliffs they can’t even see.


TASHI’S STORY

First off, how completely amazing that someone who’s blind can climb any sort of mountain let alone Everest. Sometimes I can’t even walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night without tripping over ten things before I get there.

The premise of the movie sucked me in and made me want to find out it’s outcome, but what really stuck with me were the stories of the children’s lives. Tashi is the one I remember the most, he was a teenager who was taken away from his home town and sold into slavery by his family. Eventually he became homeless and was discovered by the teacher of the school.

Being a streetkid apparently is another circumstance that carries a big stigma in Tibet, which made Tashi an outcast even amongst the blind children at the school. He’s forced to spend his day to day life there always at a distance from the group.

He has lots of struggles trying to learn how to climb in the dangerous terrain, though that’s nothing compared to what he has to face on his big trip away from the mountain: going to his old hometown to try to find and ‘reunite’ with the family that sold him into slavery.

So to sum things up… come for the ‘holy crap this is a movie about blind kids climbing Everest’ factor but stay for the rich and moving true stories that are told here. This is definitely not a run of the mill sort of documentary.

(Seen on Netflix instant streaming, but Amazon also has the DVD.)