ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the representation of blindness in Lou Ye’s 2014 film, Blind Massage (Tuina 推拿, 2014). First, it examines how the film represents the social conditions of blind people in China, showing that the film confirms how prevalent cultural understandings of blindness lead to social segregation. Second, it adopts an auteurist approach to understand the emphasis on sexual desire and the cinematic style used to express it as part of director Lou Ye’s signature interests. Third, it examines how the film attempts to communicate the experience of blindness to the audience in a complex manner that exceeds mimicking blindness by using devices like blurring the image or black screen. Indeed, these visual devices are often used in a manner that does not follow the experiences of the characters in the film. Furthermore, great emphasis is placed on developing cinematic techniques to communicate heightened senses of touch and sound.
