SIGHTLESS ANALYSIS

Sightless is a 2020 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Cooper Karl, based on his short film of the same name. The film revolves around how a violinist - Ellen Ashland must fight back to escape her new reality in which people are not who they seem to be after a vicious attack leaves her blind. But soon, she plunges into paranoia, unable to convince anyone that her assailant has returned to terrorize her by hiding in plain sight.

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The film opened with an over shoulder shot of the main character - Ellen. The fact that it just shows her back indicates that the film will revolve around the life of this young woman. Besides that a sense of sadness and desperation emerge through the use of dark tone color in the scene. I notice a feeling of hopelessness, pain is underlying throughout the scene where there is a ray of light in front of her. This ray of light may connotes a sense of relief, freedom that the woman is craved for to escape from the cramped reality.

Next, a long shot helps the audience to understand what’s going on in the film and it also shows the upcoming action of Ellen. Likewise the tense, depressing atmosphere, Ellen is trying to get away from the world by suicide which indicate that she’s in a maximum level of suffer that leads her to find the way to release herself. This second frame will immediately bring a sense of death and danger due to the presence of an suicidal action. This signals to the audience that the film will be surrounded with violence, psychological damage of Ellen and what leads Ellen to make such a decision.

Following up, the wide shot reveals the title ‘Sightless’ with a basic font and an ombre tone of color. The black basic background may be used to indicate the color embraced around the life of Ellen with lots of pain, suffering and danger. It also directly shows to the audience that the film follows a genre of psychological thriller based on its simplicity.

The wide blurry shot shows the name of the main actress - Madelaine Petsch which is used to highlight the actress who is taking the main role. The director may want the audience to remember and notice the one that made up the whole story of the film. Besides that, even though the background had been blurred, we can still see the image of a woman lying on the hospital bed with lots of medical equipment beside. The frame may try to hint at the person who is suffering by attaching the actress’s name.

This medium shot is being edited as a fast flashback in order to reveal to the audience what had happened in the past and the reason why Ellen is in the current situation. The frame acts as a linking between present and past as it connects the storyline. In the past, Ellen had been splashing something into her eyes and leading to her being blind - a decent event that changed her whole life. It also helped to raise a sense of sympathy and scared the audience towards Ellen from what happened. The way it was edited as a flashy memory shows us that it had been shaped as a trauma that will come with her until die.

Likewise the previous frame, this frame also added to highlight the decent event that happened that causes Ellen to be in the hospital with the need of advanced medical equipment. However, the fact that the identity of the person who caused it had been hidden which raised a sense of curiosity to the audience of who is that cruel to a young woman. This makes us think that the identity of the person will be revealed along the upcoming event within the film.

This medium shot shows Ellen lying on the hospital bed with many severe injuries as result of the decent event. The fact that eyes are being covered implies that there may have been some serious damage to her visibility. Furthermore, we can also see that the theme of dark blue color runs along all the film with the use to keep the tension and nervousness among the viewers.

This close up shot zooms in the monitors to show the current welfare of Ellen and how she is doing. There are several indexes that are being monitored such as heart pulse, blood pressure… and also the contrast in color of green and red indicates comfort area and danger area that Ellen is in. It also helps to show the severity of Ellen’s injuries which make the audience empathy for her cramped life.

Another close up shot emphasizes a different face angle of Ellen as well as the bruise on her face. The bruise may act as a connotation of violence, abuse and oppression. When coupled with those previous frames, this opening sequence ends up for us a feeling of panic and fear due to the images and actions that present extreme force and intensity. Furthermore, the names pop up on the side of the frame are the other minor characters that also act in this film.