Educational Media Reviews Online

Adapted from his popular children’s book Les yeux noirs, author Gilles Tibo teams up with animator Nicola Lemay to illustrate what it is like to live with visual impairment. This 14-minute 25-second animation film exhibits an appropriate style for the subject matter: words appear in brail then morph into letters, the visuals are black/grey and white except when they depict the protagonist Matthew’s dreams – he dreams in color. As a visually impaired child, Matthew has a positive approach to his life and sees himself as a “private eye” who uses his other “eyes”, the ones in his ears, nose, hands and feet to decipher clues and get cues about the world around him. His quest in this film is to discover what present his parents have bought him for his birthday.

The audience is sensitized to Matthew’s perception of his environment by first being shown his immediate surroundings as he perceives them and then projecting forward to a more complete view of his world as it expands before our eyes. It’s a very clever way of explaining his surroundings and his relationship to his environment. We become aware how he sees without the benefit of sight and that he can fully function as an individual without being able to see in the traditional sense. The DVD also offers a descriptive video feature and a choice of either English or French dialogue. As an animated film, it does not pander to children, it engages them in the same way it engages adults. Apart from the important teaching tool it is, it also serves the function of being highly entertaining and aesthetically interesting. Highly recommended for all ages and areas of interest.