The idea that a documentary could assume the perspective of a blind man initially seems paradoxical. Movies, after all, are essentially a visual art form; remove the image and the remaining elements become an entirely different medium. Cinema had already made a global impact when audio became de rigueur for most productions in the late ’20s, and many people felt that talkies carried the transience of a passing fad. It’s nice to hear Al Jolson sing, but does anybody care to know what Charlie Chaplin sounds like? It takes the illusion of motion to involve audiences in the act of viewing.

So you might consider Black Sun, Gary Tarn’s bold attempt to redefine the conventional relationship between video and audio, as a sort of cinematic chutzpah (ironically, it’s playing exclusively on Cinemax). Tarn, in his directorial debut, uses interviews with blind painter Hughes de Montalembert as a voiceover track accompanying a 90-minute collection of disjointed imagery, much of which has been modified or inverted. De Montalembert’s story begins with tragedy and gradually settles into a series of contemplative anecdotes. The Parisian was mugged in 1978 while living in Greenwich Village and immediately thrown into a world of darkness. But, as he explains, the brain doesn’t release its familiarity with sight so easily.

Through sheer determination, the artist finds a way to continue his life and work. Tarn allows de Montalembert to tell his experiences without the intrusion of other perspectives. Nothing comes close to matching the opening minutes when he begins to realize that people are more comfortable around him since he can’t judge their appearances. The notion that sight implicates disapproval suggests that we might all benefit from a little less vision.

As an experiment in form, the concept behind Black Sun is far more ambitious than the execution. Since the images generally don’t directly correlate with De Montalembert’s words, the resulting effect is one of cognitive dissonance. Sans narration, Black Sun would feel like little more than an arbitrary clip show. Plot is secondary to the sole character’s keen observations, which could conceivably give hope to others suffering from similar ailments. The rest of us can only watch in awe.