Seeing Eye-To-Eye: “Sight” and the Redeeming Power of Vision
Angel Studios isn’t one of the most prominent movie studios out there. It isn’t as well-known as Universal, MGM, Paramount, or Columbia. But in the past year or so, the studio has released several well-acclaimed features based on real-life stories.
The Sound of Freedom (2023) chronicles U.S. government agent Tim Ballard’s efforts to rescue children from sex traffickers in Colombia. Cabrini (2024) follows the life of 19th-century Catholic missionary and Italian immigrant Francesca Cabrini, who settled and founded a religious institute in New York City. The Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot tells the tale of Donna and Reverend Martin of Possum Trot, Texas, two individuals who rescued 77 children from foster care in 1996.
The Film
And… one of its other major productions has been Sight (2023), an inspiring narrative based on the real-life story of Dr. Ming Wang. Wang, an impoverished medical prodigy, flees from 1960s-era Communist China and later becomes an eye surgeon in the United States. When a blind Indian orphan arrives in Nashville, Tennessee from Calcutta, Dr. Wang and his partner, Dr. Misha Bartnovsky, set out to help restore her sight. Dr. Wang struggles, though, not only with the daunting medical challenge ahead of him, but also several traumatic incidents from his childhood.
Terry Chan and Greg Kinnear star as the two main leads. Andrew Hyatt wrote and directed the film (alongside John Duigan and Buzz McLaughlin). David Fischer, Darren Moorman, and Vicki Sotheran produced the movie. Michael Balfry provided principal photography. Dan O’Brien was the movie’s editor, and Sean Philip Johnson oversaw its musical score. The film’s other production companies include Open River Entertainment and Reserve Entertainment.
The film, which jumps back and forth between 1968 (China) and 2007 (the United States), follows Dr. Wang in his pursuit of personal redemption. Dr. Wang is a brilliant, “miracle-working” physician, and yet, given his past, he wrestles with feelings of regret and self-doubt.
The Science of Sight
As the title suggests, the film primarily focuses on the literal conflict between blindness and vision. But the themes of blindness and vision are also undoubtedly proverbial. Dr. Wang feels like several devastating episodes in his past have “blinded” him in the present. They have caused him to question himself and his capabilities. Later in the film, though, Dr. Wang, having found closure with his past, remarks that one of his patients showed him that “there’s more to life than what you can see.”
Vision itself is a tricky thing. When we look at the world, we believe we see it objectively…like a video camera, but we don’t. Our eyes detect light, our lenses focus the light that our eyes detect and direct it towards our retinas, and our retinas in turn convert the light that lands on them into nerve signals1. Our retinas are comprised of highly specialized, very sensitive cells known as “photoreceptors”1. The two main types are “rods,” which mainly detect differences in brightness and help us see in dim or dark places, and “cones,” which are more sensitive and can pick up more details and different colors1. Our pupils can widen (dilate) or narrow (constrict) to control how much light enters our eyes, and, once the light that enters our eyes enters our brain, optic nerves process and decode the various “images”1.
The occipital portion of the brain is primarily responsible for processing these “images,” but our vision also frequently involves other regions of the brain. Our vision can overlap with language, memory, sensation, emotion, movement, and higher executive functioning. Seeing is far more of an active process than we might initially assume. Our eyes are constantly engaging in “saccadic” movements…scanning the horizon…filtering out threats, opportunities, friends, foes, mates, and other objects of significance. It’s no wonder our eyes are the first muscles to give in every time we feel tired/sleepy! We’ll return to the phenomenon of vision itself in just a moment.
The Real Dr. Wang
The real Dr. Wang- who earned a PhD in laser physicks from the University of Maryland, graduated magna cume laude from MIT and Harvard Medical School, and he specialized in cataract and LASIK eye surgery2. Nicknamed the “doctor’s doctor,” he has performed over 55,000 eye surgeries throughout his life, including 4,000 on fellow doctors2. One of Dr. Wang’s demonstrable successes represented in the film, though, was his use of the amniotic membrane contact lens. This device, made from the innermost layer of the human placenta, has alleged regenerative and healing properties3. According to the Wang Vision Institute, it can help with dry eye syndrome and corneal scarring, and, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, it “has been shown to provide substantial benefit in treating certain types of conjunctival and corneal disease(s)”3.
Mia SwamiNathan plays Kajal, the young Indian girl who becomes blind in both eyes when her stepmother pours acid into them and leaves her at a train station. Although Dr. Wang tried his best, he notes that “medically, [he] was very devastated” when he couldn’t successfully restore her vision as “the injury was too severe”3. He did, however, supply her with amniotic membrane contact lenses. Wang, who almost gave up surgery altogether after working with Kajal, found that his perspective changed when he danced with her at the “EyeBall gala” in 2007. “She had nothing but made the best (of her situation),” she was happy,” Wang says3. Kajal eventually earned her master’s degree after returning to India and attending college, and Wang did successfully work with another visually impaired young girl3.
Dr. Wang, who currently lives in Nashville with his wife Anle and their five cats, is a very prolific individual. He has watched hundreds of American movies to learn English, provided over 30 years of charity work in China, and has even performed eye surgery on famous country superstars, including Dolly Parton. Dr. Wang learned to play the Chinese Erhu violin as a young child, and, presently, he’s also a champion ballroom dancer. He is a very devout Christian and believes that the “spiritual light” is the most important type of light.
More Than Meets the Eye
With that, let us return to the phenomenon of vision itself. Vision is literally something our eyes and our optic nerves are capable of. But, in many ways, “proverbial” vision and “actual” vision do overlap. After all, when someone describes a “vision” or a “dream,” they are seeing something in their mind. But they may very well “see” the truth, beauty, or goodness of something with as much vividness as a cat, tree, house, etc. That is the essence of seeing the “spiritual light” (even if someone isn’t religious). In the famous, biblical “Road to Damascus” story, Saul is “blinded by the light.” His vision returns when he “sees” the error of his ways and changes for the better (he then converts to Christianity and becomes St. Paul).
There is however a dark antithesis to this idea (no pun intended). That is the philosophy that no individual can see outside themselves. They cannot notice the error of their ways or change for the better…so they shouldn’t even try. This idea stresses that individuals shouldn’t have dreams or aspirations. They are condemned to whatever group they were born into. This philosophy undoubtedly lies at the core of communism. The powers that be will decide what is good, what is historically important/relevant, and what the prices of goods and services should be. Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, and Vladimir Lenin certainly spearheaded this ideology, but it didn’t take long for it to make its way across the globe, and China (the Soviet Union’s next-door neighbor) was one such country to embrace it.
The Red State
The industrial and genocidal failure that was the “Great Leap Forward” sent China into a deep depression, and so Mao Zedong, in response (fearing urban social stratification in a society as traditionally elitist as China), adopted four goals4. He wanted to replace his designated successors with leaders who were “more faithful” to his current thinking, he wanted to provide the Chinese youth with revolutionary experience, he wanted to achieve specific policy changes related to healthcare, education, and cultural systems, and he wanted to rectify the Chinese Communist Party4. Mao, who renewed the spirit of the Chinese Revolution during his last decade in power (1966-76), ultimately turned the country into a hellscape.
Mao brought on a coalition of associates. They included his wife, Jiang Qing, and her group of radical intellectuals who ruled the intellectual realm, Defense Minister Lin Biao, who maintained a Maoist military, assistants Chen Boda, Kang Sheng, and Wang Dongxing, all of whom carried out Mao’s ideological and security-related directives, and Premier Zhou Enlai4.
Mao, deeply concerned about “bourgeois” infiltrators in his government/party, published a Central Communist Party Central Committee document on May 16, 19664. Many historians consider this the beginning of the Cultural Revolution (although Mao didn’t officially launch the revolution until August of that year)4. At the Eleventh Plenum of the Eight Central Committee, Mao shut down China’s schools, encouraged his “Red Guards” to attack all traditional values and “bourgeois” things, and tested party officials by publicly criticizing them4.
The movement quickly escalated, and Mao’s “foot soldiers” both verbally and physically attacked/killed many intellectuals and older people4. The Red Guards splintered into various, zealous rivaling factions, and Mao’s personality cult provided the type of momentum to this movement that reached a religious fervor4! The terror, anarchy, and paralysis caused the urban economy to tank, and industrial production for 1968 dipped 12% below that of 19664. The political chaos spread across the country, causing many deaths and disrupting the lives of students, factory workers, and others.
Red Guards brutally captured and beat various people close to Ming Wang during his childhood years, including his own sister. The Maoists, driven by a hatred of and resentment towards the “elite class,” ruthlessly demanded that everyone they confront denounce their nation’s history and accept the principle of the “modern man.”
Conclusion
Fortunately, though, Wang’s desires and ambitions…his dreams of learning so he can help and heal others…defeat the uglier desires and ambitions of the Maoist state. Wang finds freedom in the United States. He discovers the “spiritual light” that guides America as a country and its citizens as individuals. This vision leads to him becoming a noble figure in the field of ocular medicine…one whom the film Sight compellingly highlights!
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