To be unable to see must take a toll on one’s self-awareness and one’s self-consciousness. Those with the privilege of sight tend to take the ability to see for granted, not often thinking about or feeling gratitude for what’s been given to them. But what would it be like not to have the opportunity to stare at oneself in the mirror? Not to be able to visualize oneself in one’s mind? It isn’t difficult to imagine that one’s self-image would be affected by such an incomplete sensory experience, as is the case with Ingrid, the protagonist of Eskil Vogt’s wonderful directorial debut, Blind.

Ingrid (Ellen Dorrit Petterson) is a woman dealing with loss. Not the loss of a spouse or a parent or a child, but as previously mentioned, the loss of vision. It has been a couple of years since her sight has been taken from her, and she’s reaching the point where she’s beginning to have problems visualizing her surroundings; images are finally slipping away from her. As a result, she starts to develop insecurities, not only about herself and her body, but her environment as well. For instance, she questions whether her husband really does go to work, or if he is in fact sitting in silence, watching her, a companion transformed into nothing more than a voyeur.

It is because of these newfound uncertainties that Ingrid, restricting herself to her apartment, takes to her laptop, beginning to write stories through which she expresses frustration with her situation. At this point, director Eskil Vogt begins to play around with audience expectations and provides a whole new meaning to the idea of fusing reality with fantasy. Ingrid’s fiction blends seamlessly with her true life experience, and because Vogt’s mode of filmmaking is so simple and minimalist, there aren’t any fancy editing tricks employed to clearly separate what is real from what’s taking place in her literature. This sounds like it may make for convoluted storytelling, but it is handled with such a degree of care and earnestness that the story rarely regresses into incoherence.

This is part due to Vogt’s excellent screenwriting and his cinematographer, Thimios Bakatakis’ equally impressive camerawork. Vogt and Bakatakis had already proven themselves successful creators with their previous projects. Vogt working hand-in-hand on three films with one of Norway’s most successful directors, Joachim Trier (Reprise, Oslo August 31st, Louder than Bombs), and Bakatakis working with one of Greece’s great filmmakers, the Academy Award nominated Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth). However, it is with Blind that their talents have come into full fruition; Vogt’s internal dialogue carries the film, with Ingrid acting as narrator for all the film’s characters, both in her reality and in her fictions, and Bakatakis’ imagery taking an expressionist approach by focusing more on sensory details and framing than a straightforward representation of Ingrid’s reality.

It was a wise choice indeed for Vogt to provide his protagonist with omniscience, for it’s through many of the characters’ internal lives, daily routines and histories that viewers come to understand things about them and care for them. Most of what the audience learns about these characters is a result of the exposition within Ingrid’s narration, but it never feels invasive or as if Vogt is taking the easy way out by merely explaining rather than showing. There are some things you cannot show. The characters within Blind are ultimately very private people, and the only way viewers are ever going to learn anything about them is through some sort of all-knowing voice. It’s in this sense that Blind nearly transcends being only about literary expression, almost feeling more like a novel than a film inclusive of literary themes. There’s a strong visual emphasis on the sensory experience (or sometimes lack thereof) and a gorgeous original score from Henk Hofstede. In the end, its cinema in the purest form—an imagistic recreation of reality.

Blind opens in New York and Los Angeles this week, and is also available for streaming on Fandor.

There’s an inherent paradox when it comes to family: despite spending more time with your parents/siblings than anyone else, you’ll never get to truly know who these people are. Joachim Trier’s Louder than Bombs, his follow-up to the devastating masterpiece Oslo August 31, explores the collisions between the individual, subjective experiences of family members, along with the barriers of communication that can spring up between the people closest to you. The film starts approximately three years after the death of Isabelle Reed (Isabelle Huppert), a war photographer who took her own life by crashing her car. Isabelle’s husband Gene (Gabriel Byrne) and eldest son Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) know the truth surrounding her death, but her 15-year-old son Conrad (Devin Druid) still thinks it was an accident. Now, with Isabelle’s former colleague (David Strathairn) planning to reveal the truth about her death in a piece he’s planning for the New York Times, Gene tries to tell the truth to Conrad while attempting to repair the relationship between his two sons.

Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt continue to show off their strength as filmmakers when it comes to experimenting with form to accurately portrayal the thought process. The film frequently swaps perspectives between Gene, Jonah and Conrad, while also hopping back and forth through time to when Isabelle was alive. Through this, it’s apparent that each man has a different idea of who Isabelle was, and the way these differing interpretations intersect is when Louder than Bombs hits a level of specificity that creates some great drama. But when Trier decides to break away and show the stories of each individual—Gene’s secret relationship with one of Conrad’s teachers (Amy Ryan), Jonah’s fear of becoming a father, and Conrad’s crush on a cheerleader that’s out of his league—it falls into clichés that wind up making the film get lost within itself. It’s disappointing because, when Trier’s methods do work, he creates some heart-wrenching and sublime moments (an extreme close-up of a character staring the camera down will haunt viewers for days). If Trier had more moments like these, Louder than Bombs could have been the masterpiece it so obviously wants to be.

Oslo, August 31st is magnificent. A film that succeeds on many levels. It is brilliantly made by its director Joachim Trier and brilliantly acted by his actors. I honestly don’t know if I can even find anything wrong with the film. Everything from a technical standpoint seems perfect. To be honest though, it would be very hard for me to watch the film again. I don’t know if I could, even if I wanted to. I cannot remember the last time a movie hit me on such an emotional level. A couple of times I was reduced to tears, other times I was filled with rage. Even right now as I write this, emotions from the film swell within me. When the film ended all I could do was watch the words move up the screen. I couldn’t move.

Oslo‘s premise is simple. A young man who was a former drug addict is being released for a day from the treatment center he has been living at while trying to get clean. He is heading to Oslo for a job interview and to catch up with old friends. The film takes place all within 24 hours so there is no extra fat on the film’s bones. One of the first scenes with Anders, the film’s main character, involves him walking to a lake and filling his pockets with rocks. He then grabs a very big rock that he struggles to lift. He gets it into his arms and slowly walks into to lake hoping to kill himself. He disappears for nearly 30 seconds only to resurface gasping for air.

Anders heads back to the treatment center and gets ready to depart on his trip for Oslo. When he arrives in Oslo he immediately seeks out an old friend who partied with Anders almost daily. Drugs, alcohol, girls. His name is Thomas, he quit the scene years ago and now has a wife and two young kids. They spend a couple hours catching up. I found their conversation fascinating. They talk about all kinds of things ranging from things they did back in the day to kids, being a father, lack of sex between married couples etc. The conversation slowly reveals what Anders will be figuring out on his trip. Does he have a shot at starting over and if he did is it truly worth it. The film then slowly unspools into a painful journey of a man who finds out exactly how cruel life really can be.

The journey Anders makes throughout this film is very hard to watch. In one scene he goes to a job interview and the interviewer asks him why there is such a big gap in employment and Anders is forced, painfully, to admit that he was a drug addict. The look on his face when he says this is gut-wrenching. Anders storms out of the office embarrassed and ashamed, taking his resume and tossing it into the trash. In another scene Anders runs into a man at a bar who slept with his former girlfriend while they were together. Anders forgives him and the man tells him that he ruined many lives and has no right forgive others. The man has no idea what Anders is trying to achieve on this day. He leaves the bar in despair.

Throughout he’ll visit a house party where he runs into an old flame, dance with some friends at a rave and in the best scene of the film he rides on a bike with another girl while a friend and his girl ride a bike with a fire extinguisher. They roam the empty quiet streets of Oslo spraying the extinguisher at each other. It’s presented quietly and poetically. The scene in itself is a mini masterpiece.

Let’s talk about Anders for a second. Here is a performance worthy of magnificent praise. One of the hardest things to do as an actor is to craft a character that we don’t sympathize with, but one that empathize with. Let’s face it; Anders has done terrible things in his life. As a drug addict he has ruined people’s lives, including his own. Some of his friends that he wants to see want nothing to do with him. Anders is a man who we don’t feel completely sorry for, but one that we can root for as he tries to right some of his wrongs.

The actor playing Anders, Anders Danielsen Lie, is utterly devastating in the title role. A lot of what comes from Anders isn’t even said and yet all his emotions are perfectly portrayed through his body language. Even as I type this I think about Anders sitting in a diner alone as he listens to people rattle off petty things they hate about life and it makes my chest tighten. Anders doesn’t represent any actual person I know, but the performance is so real it feels like he is a friend.

Trier presents a lot of scenes with Anders with either very little sound or none at all. Some of these scenes have him walking the streets of beautiful Oslo, some have him lying in the park and others are him in a bar or a club. This quietness shows how alone he really is in this world. Anders can be around as many people as he wants but he’ll always be alone. Most cannot relate to him and others will judge him enough not to even try.

Much of the film is incredibly hard to watch. Anders is consistently reminded of the things he’s done with almost no hope for a better life. You might be asking why I would love a film that is so depressing. For me it’s not what the film ultimately says or does, but how it goes about it. Here is a film that has an uncompromising vision. Pulling no punches; Trier hides none of Ander’s emotions. On a technical level the film is incredibly well made. Oslo, August 31st might be cruel, painful and depressing at times but it’s easily the best film I’ve seen this year.