Canadian couple Édith Lemay and Sebastian Pelletier are blessed with four children, but three have a congenital condition which means that before too long they will lose their sight. To enable them to see all the sights they will soon no longer be able to experience for themselves, and enjoy memories rather than just descriptions, their parents decide to take them on a grand tour. As a starting point for a National Geographic-backed documentary, this situation has plenty of potential — the circumstances are self-evidently emotional, and as a relatively little-known condition, there’s also the possibility of raising awareness of the specific issue of retinitis pigmentosa for a wider audience, as well as a broader opportunity to represent the lived experience of visual impairment onscreen.
Edmund Stenson and “Navalny” director Daniel Roher ’s film opens with a spectacular, “Lord of the Rings”-like shot of six tiny figures trekking across a remote snow-blown landscape, seen above from a God’s-eye view and then silhouetted against the horizon. The imagery conveys a sense of humankind’s littleness, struggling on, against the backdrop of a wider natural world which is indifferent to their hopes and dreams. This could have functioned as a microcosm of the film’s overall arc, though the filmmakers are determined to deliver a cozier take on the arguably bleak narrative.
The sight loss the children are experiencing is irreversible, and it’s naturally difficult t.
