Independent Film Festival Boston 2009

Built dually upon a Scandinavian cultural heritage of fairytales and the 70s blue-film sensuality, THE BLINDNESS OF THE WOODS is director Martin Jalfen’s attempt at “cute porn.” It is winter in the Kiruna Woods in the far north of Sweden. A blind girl expresses vague despair about how the freezing forest and imminent polar night have no effect on her interminably dark and lonely existence. When the blond man who has watched her walking home knocks on her door one night, she feels his face to test for recognition, then proceeds symbolically to caress his bundle of sticks. Things heat up; the two are next seen curing their loneliness as best they know how. The catch: they are both body puppets, knit creations replete with yarn genitalia showcased in full-frontal. Hysterical and creepy, the film achieves a middle ground between the cute and erotic. With humanistic emotions and machinations, the puppets gain a realism wholly defiant of their fabrication. The humorously dark finale twists rote Nordic folktale tradition.

- Daniel Barnum-Swett

This short is playing in Shorts 4: Twisted. To buy tickets click here.