There are moments in the lovely new documentaryBlink where you wonder if directors Daniel Roher and Edmund Stenson should have leaned harder into the inherently heartbreaking aspects of their subjects’ story. It would have been easy enough considering the film is about two Montreal parents who learn that three of their four pre-teen children are slowly going blind. But instead of accentuating the ticking clock or wringing tears from the cruel fate that awaits three adorable and innocent youngsters, Roher and Stenson go for something richer and more inspiring.
This, as it turns out, is also easy enough to do — or at least attempt — considering what parents Edith and Sébastien Pelletier did in response to their three children’s tragic diagnosis: they took them on a year-long journey around the globe to fill their visual memories with as much beautiful imagery as possible before their worlds go dark forever. While it was probably tempting, the film never attempts a knockout emotional punch, content to be a gently moving, family-friendly look at two wonderful parents and their brave children. It’s also a valuable reminder that all of us, in one way or another, are blind to the beauty of our planet.
Three Adorable Children Face a Tragic Diagnosis
Roher’s previous documentary was 2022’s Navalny — about the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny — which earned him an Academy Award. Blink, with its myriad eye-popping locations and DP Jean-Sébastien Francoeur’s crisp images, is a tragedy of a different sort, one that becomes something altogether beautiful and life-affirming. When we first meet the Lemay-Pelletier family, they seem normal enough. Mom Edith has learned to “accept chaos” with four kids running around the house: 11-year-old Mia, nine-year-old Léo, six-year-old Colin, and four-year-old Laurent. When the latter three are diagnosed with the rare genetic disorder retinitis pigmentosa and are destined to become blind, dad Sébastien went “numb” while Edith naturally experienced much anger and sadness.
As for the children, neither Colin nor Laurent know exactly what it means to be blind; Colin thinks it means he can get a cat. What it does mean is that Edith and Sébastien have a limited amount of time to show the afflicted trio all the shapes, colors, and wonders of the world. So they tasked their kids with creating a bucket list of desired experiences and then organized a globe-trotting adventure that would take the entire family to Oman, Egypt, Nepal, Ecuador, Thailand, and plenty of other far-flung countries.
A Story of Resiliency and Adventure
With the primary exception of some on-location interviews with Edith and Sébastien, directors Roher and Stenson let events unfold naturally. They shoot at kid’s-eye level, allowing us to marvel at Mia, Colin and Laurent’s resiliency and revel in the joy they feel as they ride horses in Mongolia, surf in Indonesia and — in one of the more endearingly odd items on their list — drink juice while sitting on a camel.
Because the children aren’t old enough to articulate their innermost feelings and Sébastien hasn’t much insight to impart, it’s up to the more well-spoken Edith, along with our built-in sympathy for the family’s plight and some captured moments with the kids, to do most of the heavy emotional lifting. It’s simply heart-rending when Laurent stares in wonder at a butterfly — possibly for the last time, we assume — and later laments that he won’t be able to see birthday photos “because I’ll be blind.” And Colin’s tear-filled goodbye to a dog he met in the Himalayas might very well elicit a tear in the viewer as well.
Roher and Stenson rightly spare us the logistical and budgetary difficulties of hitting two dozen countries in a single year on $200 a day. But when the family gets stuck on an aerial tram hovering over an Ecuadorian jungle for over nine and a half hours — from the glare of the afternoon into the foreboding dark of the evening — it’s too juicy a metaphor to ignore. Otherwise, editors Ryan Mullins and Miranda Yousef don’t push things, taking a hands-off approach to moments where encroaching blindness becomes an issue, as when Colin momentarily withdraws from a friendly soccer game because he can’t see well enough (“I have a technique” he declares before reentering the game).
Blink is often gorgeous to behold and its most ravishing visuals — like a Himalayan mountain and an Ecuadorian hot air balloon ride — have an increased resonance as we wonder if it’s the final time that Mia, Colin, and Laurent will gaze upon such a sight. The film also includes passages of the children bonding with some unique world citizens like those in a remote Amazon basin, providing Edith a measure of assurance that her kids will know how to connect with people even in darkness.
Blink Generates Power by Not Playing Up the Drama
Blink is a very respectable middle-tier entry in National Geographic’s string of terrific documentaries that includes the Oscar-winning Free Solo and the Oscar-nominated Fire of Love and The Cave. By not cranking up the drama or portraying the family as victims, Roher and Stenson make a persuasive argument that the kids’ uncertain future may — actually will — be fulfilling. They also advise us to drink in as much of the world as possible because someday the light will be gone for all of us.
Blink will be released in theaters on October 4 and stream on Disney+ by the end of 2024.
