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Land of the Blind
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Land of the Blind (2006) More at IMDbPro »

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Overview

User Rating:
6.4/10   1,664 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Up 16% in popularity this week. See rank & trends on IMDbPro.
Director:
Robert Edwards
Writer (WGA):
Robert Edwards (written by)
Contact:
View company contact information for Land of the Blind on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
5 December 2007 (Spain) more
Genre:
Drama
Plot:
A soldier recounts his relationship with a famous political prisoner attempting to overthrow their country's authoritarian government. full summary | add synopsis
NewsDesk:
Brad Pitt nabs The Night Manager
 (From TotalFilm. 16 March 2009, 9:23 PM, PDT)

User Comments:
Brilliant. A dark comic thriller and razor-sharp political satire. more

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Ralph Fiennes ... Joe

Donald Sutherland ... Thorne

Tom Hollander ... Maximilian II

Lara Flynn Boyle ... First Lady
Marc Warren ... Pool
Ron Cook ... Doc
Robert Daws ... Jones

Laura Fraser ... Madeleine
Jonathan Hyde ... Smith

Camilla Rutherford ... Tania
Don Warrington ... First Sergeant

Miranda Raison ... Daisy
Nigel Whitmey ... Anchorman

Leigh Zimmerman ... Anchorwoman

Mackenzie Crook ... Editor
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Additional Details

MPAA:
Rated R for violence, language and some sexual content/nudity.
Runtime:
USA:110 min (Cannes Film Festival)
Country:
UK | USA
Language:
English
Color:
Color
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Dolby Digital
Certification:
USA:R | Singapore:M18 | Italy:T
Filming Locations:
London, England, UK

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
The prison in which Thorne is thrown has an especial cell, which we only know by number, where prisoners face their worst nightmare. This is a reference to George Orwell's masterpiece "1984", a novel about a man living in a totalitarian world where the rulers have the power to change every record of the past in order to control everything, even memories. more
Quotes:
[first lines]
Anchorwoman: So many fond memories of Maximilian the First on the tenth anniversary of our glorious leader's death.
Anchorman: Many of course doubted that his son and heir, Maximilian II, could live up to the example of his charismatic father. But the man affectionately called Junior has valiantly continued against the pesky rebellion, led by the playwright turned terrorist, John Thorne.
Anchorwoman: Once derided as the playboy Prince more interested in the movie business, the President-for-life announced today that he would not rest until he has rid the country of these criminals whom he called, quote, "Really bad guys". In a gesture of goodwill to the commemorate his father's memory, the President today also commuted the sentences of several men condemned to the gallows today, sending them to the guillotine instead.
[...]
more
Movie Connections:
References Planet of the Apes (1968) more
Soundtrack:
E Flat Trio 2nd Movement more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
45 out of 56 people found the following comment useful:-
Brilliant. A dark comic thriller and razor-sharp political satire., 20 March 2006
9/10
Author: Benjamin Leland from Los Angeles, United States

'Land of the Blind' is a brilliant, darkly comic thriller - a sardonic fable about power politics. It's at once deeply absurd and deadly serious, and I loved every minute of it.

The movie takes place in an unnamed country, an outlandish mix of Haiti, Iran, pre- revolutionary France, and suburban London. It's a get-along or find-yourself-in-a-re- education-camp kind of place.

The film plays as both taut political thriller and broad farce. It's a grim sign of the times that even the most outlandish aspects of this world feel like political deja-vu. Politicians are voted in based on their acting credentials; the President-for-Life is also a self-styled auteur of 'B' action movies; the sycophantic TV news-anchors remain upbeat and bubbly as they bend to the political winds, switching cheerily from Brooks Brothers to burqas.

At the heart of the movie is the relationship between imprisoned playwright Thorne (Donald Sutherland) and the man who guards him - Joe (Ralph Feinnes.) Thorne is a tortured man in possession of a brilliant mind, who's been reduced to writing on the walls of his cell with his own excrement.

Joe works for Junior, the buffoonish but cunning dictator played brilliantly by Tom Hollander. Junior is part infant terrible, part cold-blooded killer. Some will see parallels between him and other political leaders - the wealthy, goofy President trying to live up to the image of his father, the manipulation of a nation's fear of terrorism to hide gross abuses of power, etc.

Joe is cursed with a moral compass. He comes to recognize Junior as evil, but struggles with whether betrayal of the regime is the same as betrayal of his country. At first, Thorne looks like Joe's savior. But the question of whether Thorne is a Vaclav Havel - an intellectual who could save his country, or an Abimael Guzman – the imprisoned Peruvian professor and leader of the Shining Path terrorists, is grimly answered in the movie's closing act.

The cast is remarkable, nothing you wouldn't expect from Fiennes and Sutherland, and Lara Flyn Boyle does a terrifically dark and funny Lady Macbeth as Junior's wife. But Tom Hollander's performance deserves special note. Junior is now my favorite movie villain, ever. Frankly, I'd never heard of Hollander before, but here he turns in such a spectacularly comic and sinister performance that I've now Netflixed all of his other movies. If there's justice in this world (and according to this movie, there's not), Hollander would get an Oscar and a huge career out of this film.

LOTB a highly stylized, gorgeously shot movie – the rich production design and cinematography beg comparison to Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil' and Jeunet & Caro's 'Delicatessen'. Like those films, LOTB also takes place in a surreal dystopia that feels physically warped by abuses of power. Also, like those films, LOTB is darkly cynical and very, very funny.

It's a rare pleasure to see this kind of razor-sharp satire wrapped in a thrilling, artful, and well-crafted piece of story telling.

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Why is this film so hated? squallyk
What was meant by 'What is better than a steak?' question? bodinsoul-1
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