The protagonist is a man who has been well trained by his own Fear following his every step. The Shadow-Oppressor sets the rhythm, imposes a rigour on this small stability. It is impossible to flee. One is forced to live on the verge of reality. On the edge of the stage, where the set-design ends.

But it is not so much solitude that activates Fear but rather the necessity to find oneself in quotidian reality, the necessity to choose, the necessity to play roles.

Meursault, the main character in Camus’s “The Stranger” incidentally enters a story which he thought had ended and which had no significance to him. He shoots at a man, at a lying corpse, at emptiness. Blinded by the sun.

In the film, the moment of the killing is postponed for a moment by a vision of a life in which responsibility is taken for another person. When standing over the Stranger, the main hero
in the film has to choose. The world starts to dawn on him with too great a force, and the fate of the Stranger becomes a burden. The hopelessness of the protagonist is overwhelming, and
he succumbs. He needs to perform a brutal act so as to get rid of the fear, the forced responsibility. Blinded by the sun.

The evil gives him solace. The stranger disappears – the fear disappears. But only for a moment.

What does it mean to encounter the Other, a Stranger? That is the question faced by the film’s protagonist, a man detached from the world around him, and also by countries such as Poland – xenophobic, and refusing to take on their share of responsibility.

Who is waiting for all the people on the move?

The Sun, the Sun Blinded Me

feature film, fiction
Poland, Switzerland
2016

film genre
drama

duration
74 min

shooting format
super 16 mm

picture
colour

frame rate
24 fps

screen ratio
1,85:1 (1998 x 1080 / 2K)

sound
5.1

spoken language
Polish

subtitles
English

available formats
DCP, Blu-Ray