Blindness

It has brought a different perspective to the outbreaks leading to the end of the world. Unlike other post apocalyptic films, the incapacitated side was evaluated differently.

n the land of the blind, only Julianne Moore can see. A weird malady has spread across an unnamed city that causes “white blindness” in the afflicted. Moore plays the wife of an eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo) who fakes having the disease so that she be quarantined with her husband (and the other early sufferers). The patients quickly learn that they’re on their own and that any attempts to leave the facility will result in their being shot to death. As the only sighted person, Moore literally sees the inmates/patients devolve into misery and must somehow lead a small band of them to the presumed safety of the outside world.

The movie begins rather strongly, as a young man is suddenly blinded while driving on a busy city street. Disoriented, he is helped by a passerby, who takes him home but steals his car. Meanwhile, an ophthalmologist’s office begins to fill up with people experiencing this odd blindness, not one of inky blackness but of complete whiteness. The following morning, the doctor wakes up with the same blindness, and the only way Mrs. Eye Doctor can go with him is by pretending she too has the (apparently) infectious disease.

The patients are kept in maximum-security barracks and are given sparse amounts of food that they must dole out to each other. But that’s the extent of their outside help; armed guards surround the buildings and shoot to kill anyone who tries to leave. (Lest they, you know, infect normal people.) So it’s not long before the denizens of one section (ward) decide they want more than their share, and anarchy ensues, which is compounded by nearly everyone’s lack of sight. (The doctor’s wife – everyone’s unnamed – keeps her own condition a secret from everyone except her husband.) The movie is a metaphor for the hatred within human beings for one another; it seeks to show that when the chips are down, we are just animals, even if we suffer the same indignities, because each of us wishes to be better than the next, to dominate. We are not, the movie argues, a society built solely on equality. It also seeks to show that there are different kinds of blindness: physical blindness, and the blindness of man to the suffering of his fellows.

Although the film is exquisitely well shot – from desolate city streets to the unencumbered chaos within the compound’s walls – it’s alternately slow moving and predictable. It’s easy to see what will happen once the victims are quarantined, and it’s even easier to see that the doctor’s wife will be the one to lead some of them out of the morass. Although Moore is excellent as always (as are Ruffalo, Danny Glover as an eye-patch-wearer, and Alice Braga as a blind hooker), her character seems to be less a victim and accidental leader than a chosen heroine, which runs contrary to the theme of everyday people simply trying to survive without sight. Moore’s character, the only character with sight, is presented as being a good person, but she is very slow to stop what are obviously Very Bad Things being done to the blind.

Aside from the blindness angle, there isn’t much here to separate this film from other personal-disaster films (to differentiate them from natural-disaster films, which would include earthquakes, tidal waves, and tornados), such as movies about plagues (28 Days Later), zombies (Dawn of the Dead), or infectious diseases (Outbreak). The idea that people would turn on each other even though they suffer together is not new; neither is the idea of a society (in this case, an entire city) abandoning those who all have some sort of disease. And because these ideas aren’t new, Blindness isn’t as compelling as it ought to be; the characters are generally one dimensional and unlikeable, so this isn’t even much of a feel-good movie. To tell the truth, it’s a bit of a lifeless downer, although the ending makes up for it a little.

A final note: The American Council of the Blind said, in deploring the movie, that “blind people do not behave like uncivilized, animalized creatures.” That’s simply a silly statement. Anyone can behave as an uncivilized, animalized creature, particularly if they are treated as animals and quarantined from “normal” society (which was the point of the director, Fernando Meirelles); to believe that blind people are not susceptible to anger, despair, and revenge is to believe that blindness somehow connotes angelic heroism, which is unfair toward blind people as well.

"If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed", said the great Stanley Kubrick, who adapted most of his films from novels and turned them into his own films, rather than being too literal (or faithful, if you prefer) to the source material (and often turning authors and fans of the adapted novels crazy – Stephen King, anyone?). I agree with his statement. No literary work is "unfilmable" – which doesn't necessarily mean any literary work, good or bad, can be turned into a good movie. However, in spite of a few flaws, "Blindness" is a very efficient adaptation of a brilliant (and very complex) novel by Portuguese author José Saramago, "Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira" (literally, "Essay About Blindness"), and doesn't deserve all the bad reviews it's been getting.

The negative reaction towards the film doesn't surprise me at all, though. Fernando Meirelles, after getting world acclaim with his neoclassic "City of God", made a very successful transition to an international project with the beautiful "The Constant Gardener". His sophomore English project is very daring and dark, uneasy to watch at times, but also compelling and thought-provoking.

César Charlone's exquisite cinematography sets the tone for the story of an unexplained "white blindness" epidemic. It's also a huge asset to have such a phenomenal actress like Julianne Moore to play the film's heroine: as always, she has a strong presence and is extremely expressive, making everyone believe and feel for her character's cross of being the only one who can see in a chaotic quarantine, where people have to submit to violence and rape in order to survive.

My only major complaint is about the uneven first 20 minutes or so: some sequences seem a little disjointed and the acting somewhat amateurish, but once the first act is done the film finds its own pace and strength. Roger Ebert called it "one of the most unpleasant, not to say unendurable, films" he's ever seen. For a start, it would be stupid to assume a film with such a dark premise would be uplifting (and if Ebert had the slightest knowledge about the material it's based on, he'd realize what he was up for), so his comment is unintelligent and atrocious like the majority of everything he's ever written (but he's a widely popular Pulitzer-winning film critic, so unfortunately lots of people trust his opinion before going to see a movie). Even though I still prefer the outstanding novel to the film, I admire director Fernando Meirelles and writer Don McKellar's adaptation for what it is: smart, daring and respectful to its source material, without being overtly faithful or afraid of taking risks. And Saramago himself approved the film, so who are we to criticize? The man knows what he's talking about; if you want to see it for yourself, read his novel now and then compare it to this film, appreciating it not as a literary work, but as the good piece of cinema it is. 8/10.

The movie I watched was actually taken with a very loyal mind to original José Saramago's book. When we look at the lower IMDb score that movie have taken, we realize that it is not often overlooked that this film deserved by the viewer. Sad but we are not surprised. Because it's a literary adaptation. Blindness is not suitable for young minds waiting for the story of post-civilization apocalyptic worlds like 'Mad Max' 'Waterworld' and 'God of Flies'. This is not the action that this generation expects, but the dark desperate world that goes bumpy in the feces is something beyond the comfort standards even for young people. I advice people to read the book first and than watch Julianne Moore acting.

Sometimes I wonder. At times, it seems that we all have some shared cinematic values — that some art can reach us all. Sure, we usually sacrifice depth in the process, but that's a small enough occasional price for the joy of laughing with a crowd. It is no small part of the experience, that shared dark room with no remote control.

So when I see a movie like this, I wonder why it doesn't fit the niche. It is extraordinarily well done. The eye is used to convey not only narrative movement — as usually is desired — but situated group emotion as well. It does this in a straightforward, effective way. It is high cinema, but not requiring deciphering. Some visual episodes here simply took my breath away. They worked, all of them that I got, because Julianne understood what they were and how to support them.

The story has allegorical elements about society and family, humanness and knowing. I would have preferred that they be more subtle, more Chinese. But they worked. You could see the balance, the perfect weighing of values, the texture from a Nobel-level writer.

So this should have been embraced by everyone. High visual art with accessible vocabulary and visceral effect. Obvious allegory, but with rich immediate motion. Several unexpected turns. But for some reason it wasn't. As I knew this going in, it became a sort of parallel context that was carried along. This was absolutely pummeled by the newspaper writers, not critics really; just reporters of a supposed banal zeitgeist.

Viewers on IMDb were not so savage, but this, like "Children of Men" did not get the exposure it deserved. The business about goodness grown from being forced to live on the periphery of dangerous tribe simply did not carry from "City of God" to here, though the similarities are striking.

So I wonder whether it is me that is blind here, in celebrating this, or the other way.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.