Blindness DVD Review
Blindness (DVD)
Directed by: Fernando Meirelles
Written by: Don McKellar (screenplay), José Saramago (novel)
Starring: Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gael García Bernal, Don McKellar
We’ve seen plenty of movies about killer diseases that come close to wiping out the human race, but what if the world was suddenly struck by a plague that didn’t kill people, and instead, stole their vision? How would the victims cope with this sudden disability, and how would the rest of society react?
This is the premise to Jose Saramago’s Nobel prize-winning novel Blindness, which has been brought to the big screen by director Fernando Mereilles (City of God, The Constant Gardener). With its intriguing concept and promising pedigree, a lot of people had high hopes for this film, but early reactions from its debut at Cannes came back somewhat negative. Meirelles went back and recut the film, trying to tighten it up, but Blindness never really recovered. The movie was mostly panned, didn’t end up getting a wide release and kind of faded away quietly into the night.
Despite the mixed reviews, this is a movie that I really wanted to love. I suspected it might be getting a bad rap simply for being a so-called “message movie”, so I went in with an open mind. To my surprise, it starts with a strong stylistic opening and a provocative mystery surrounding the spread of the disease. A man driving to work suddenly finds that he can see only white. He consults his doctor (Mark Ruffalo), and the following day, the doctor is also blind. From here we follow the first wave of the infected into a quarantine zone where they are unceremoniously dumped and left to live on their own. This is where the majority of the movie takes place, and things go downhill from here.
Julianne Moore is the sole inmate who is still able to see, but she keeps it to herself. In order to take care of her husband, she stays with him in the ambulance and ends up trapped in the quarantined area even though she never contracts the symptoms. Living conditions in the hospital ward become horrendous, and eventually the whole thing degrades into a Lord of the Flies-type of scenario, with the most vile and vicious inmates seizing control and terrorizing the rest of the population.
Make no mistake, Blindness paints a pretty bleak and disgusting picture of humanity, which stays true to Jose Saramago’s message. The characters’ clothes and living quarters are filthy, there are moments of violence and rape, and none of the actors or actresses appear in a very flattering light (least of all Julianne Moore in her dungy grey sweatpants). The problem, however, is not that the movie is harsh and uncompromising, but rather that the storytelling is unfocused, and the characters so one-dimensional that it’s impossible to feel anything for them.
There are a lot of talented actors here, but almost all of them struggle to give a convincing performance. Scenes that are supposed to be gripping and emotional instead play out like high school drama class. Part of the problem might come from the fact that the book was originally written in another language. Screenwriter Don McKellar is best known for his solid work with Bruce McDonald, but here the dialogue is rather stilted and unnatural. The blindness of the characters also seems to be a distraction and limits the ability of the actors to play off of each other. Gael Garcia Bernal, for example, is usually fantastic, but here he is dreadfully cheesy as the villain, and I’m sorry but there’s just no way to take Danny Glover wearing an eye patch seriously!
The overall production design also didn’t do much to lend believability to the story. Although the preparations were extensive and the FX work fairly minimal, the surroundings don’t feel particularly real. You can blame part of it on the limited $25 million budget, but there are also artistic decisions made here that don’t really pay off. The white visual motif and constant focus tricks employed by Mereilles seem interesting early on, but eventually become annoying and gimmicky. I can understand wanting to show the perspective of the blind from time to time, but when the entire movie has a desaturated, washed out appearance, it just makes it bland and unpleasant to look at. Compared to the lush cinematography City of God, this is not nearly as interesting visually. The musical score is also a little too sparse and fails to fill in the emotional gaps.
I probably could have looked past a lot of the film’s flaws if it still presented an intriguing post-apocalyptic vision of the world, but I just wasn’t interested in where the story went. I wanted to know what the government was doing, I wanted stories of survivors and chaos in the streets, but most of this is only touched on briefly through a quick montage narrated by Danny Glover’s character. Blindness is certainly not in the same league as Children of Men, and the closest comparison I can come up with is Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later but without the cross-country road trip, instead focusing solely on the psychotic military unit cooped up in the house at the end.
Ultimately I’m not sure who to blame, but all I know is that Blindness, the film, is not all that it could have been. There are ideas here worth exploring even if they are not presented particularly well, and Julianne Moore does manage to keep the movie anchored, but all too often it feels clumsy and ham-fisted and I totally understand why most critics chose to turn up their noses. Fans of the book or the post-apocalyptic genre in general will probably get something out of it, but everyone else should probably steer clear of this flick.
The DVD release contains some deleted scenes with short written introductions by Meirelles and a decent hour-long making-of documentary. — Sean
SCORE: 
Recommended If You Like: 28 Days Later, Right At Your Door, I Am Legend
Comments (21)
I wanted to like this film but it turned out to be a bore-fest. I hate these films that have an international cast. I guess this was the only way to get financing for the film but I would prefer to have an all american cast or an all foreign cast. The film basically goes nowhere. I wish they would have concentrated on the outside world instead of inside the prison walls.
Posted by The Het on February 22nd, 2009“…the surroundings don’t feel particularly real.”
I haven’t seen the film, but apart from the bad reviews, I’ve mostly stayed away because I grew up in Guelph, where some the prison scenes were shot. I drove by that jail every day in high school, and I think I would just laugh if I saw it again.
Posted by Ashley on February 22nd, 2009The Het, please elaborate on your comment, “I would prefer to have an all american(sic) cast or an all foreign cast.” Americans are comprised of many nationalities.
Posted by Reed Farrington on February 23rd, 2009The criticism of what the narrative chose to focus on is a moot point. That is essentially saying “the book should not have been made into a movie.” I imagine Saramago knew what he wanted to do. And I’m pretty sure Mereilles wasn’t trying to make a 28 Days Later style post-apocalyptic movie. He wanted to adapt the novel (which would make perfect sense, no?).
It’s always dangerous to create expectations independent from what a film intends to do/become. A lot of times it makes for odd, arbitrary criticisms.
Posted by Richard on February 24th, 2009I agree that since I haven’t read the book, I can’t say if it’s a criticism of the book or the movie, or both. If the problem lies in the book, then I’m not saying that Meirelles should have taken it upon himself to modify the plot.
However, I still think it’s valid to criticize the plot of a movie when it is based on a book I haven’t read. Plenty of other people will also watch this movie without having read the book, and they won’t care how faithful it is to the original. Personally I didn’t get anything new out of the whole prison scenario. For anyone out there who has read the book, I’d be interested to hear your opinions on this adaptation.
Posted by Sean on February 24th, 2009Reed, I think you are confusing nationality with race or ethnicity. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Posted by Mason on February 24th, 2009Oh, Mason, you’re absolutely correct. Do you understand what The Het was getting at?
Posted by Reed Farrington on February 25th, 2009Reed, I haven’t seen Blindness, but I know the director is from Brazil, which might have influenced the casting. He might have wanted to showcase some of his friends who are from Latin America. Also, it sounds like people were thrown together into the quarantine prison regardless of their social standing. So you have immigrants and foreign aliens mixing up with citizens of various races. That might be a realistic story to involve an international cast. I’m not sure why The Het has an aversion to casts made up of various nationalities. If the actors are quality, it shouldn’t matter where they are from.
Posted by Mason on February 25th, 2009Sean-
I read the book. It was a very faithful adaptation. Which is why I think so many people didn’t like it. It’s not very appealing and is kind of tough to get into(It’s actually really weird to sit and consider just how *appealing* a lot of post-apocalyptic movies are, in terms of familiar narrative arcs and climactic explosions, etc.). It isn’t sympathetic to mankind, and it doesn’t really give us much credit.
It’s really weird, but I disagree with a lot of the opinions you had on the movie. Almost like we saw two different films. I think the acting is pretty great. The cinematography, I think, is AMAZING. The world created is very well done in terms of a logical conclusion for a breakdown of society. I feel like you’re maybe confusing “realistic” with “familiar.” This definitely isn’t the familiar way a world-fallen-apart is portrayed in movies. And I think it’s unfamiliar *because* it’s more realistic.
I think you hit it right on when you said “unpleasant” to look at. I think that’s the point.
Posted by Richard on February 25th, 2009Thanks for the response, Richard.
I wasn’t expecting something exciting and action-oriented like I Am Legend, but I was expecting an interesting and thoughtful “what if” scenario. I just found both the acting and the whole breakdown of society to be over the top. There’s just something about Blindness that borders on b-movie level to me.
I can see what you’re saying about it looking “unpleasant” on purpose. I get that the point is to showcase the worst of humanity, but you can do that while still giving the audience something interesting to look at.
Posted by Sean on February 25th, 2009This just wasn’t my kind of movie. I got through the whole thing but would not recommend it to the general movie watching public.
I also attempted to read the book after watching the movie. Perhaps I try again in a couple of months.
Posted by Sam on February 25th, 2009This movie was disturbing, especially the scenes where the group of bad blind guys want the group of good blind guys women for sex in exchange for food. It was crazy!!!
Posted by Larry on February 26th, 2009What a waste of an afternoon! This film believes it’s artsy and haunting but it’s simply overwrought and dull. I wanted to at least like a character or two, but found them not worth my concern. (And why would Moore have to be wiping her husband’s ass because he can’t SEE?)
Posted by Valerie on March 1st, 2009Valerie–
Using simplistic, vague words like “artsy” totally diminishes your criticisms. That’s not a criticism, it’s a marketing term.
Posted by Richard on March 3rd, 2009dude, get off your high horse the word is a valid word used for over a century
art·sy Listen to the pronunciation of artsy
Pronunciation: \ˈärt-sē\ Function: adjective Date:1902
it clarifies a personal description of the object by defining its value to that person just like postmodern, melodramatic and hyper
Posted by rus in chicago on March 4th, 2009I didn’t question the word’s existence, or its validity as a *word*. but it is a copout in terms of criticizing a film. If it is so “valid” though, please explain to me in no uncertain terms what it means in this context? How does it go as far as the other words you listed in successfully describing its object?
Posted by Richard on March 4th, 2009I was very dissapointed. The focus of the movie is centered on survival, the deterioration of society, but to do so, they ignore every logistic involved. We never know what caused this disease, nor for that matter, how was it eliminated. We never see the CDC nor any kind of medical response to the disease which is completely illogical. Nobody studies these patients. Nobody shows a government response, but isolation. Why wasn’t Moore’s character studied since she is the only one that doesn’t catch this disease? I hated this movie. I understand that maybe it’s supposed to be artsy, an apocaliptic look of humanity at its worse, but did they have to completely ignore logic and science?????
Do yourself a favor and pass this one up because it’s a piece of crap.
Posted by Tina on March 12th, 2009Julianne Moore’s character wasn’t studied because the only people who knew she could see were her and her husband.
I always prefer an unknown cause over some pseudo-scientific rambling. That was the one huge fault of Night of the Living Dead. Discussing the cause usually takes away from the effect.
Posted by Wintle on March 12th, 2009I’m guessing Jay doesn’t check these comments too often, but I noticed on his Twitter that he liked this movie (3.5/4).
Good to know…
Posted by Richard on March 18th, 2009Okay-you guys are crazy..I loved this flim!!! While most flims of this type (Small budget..largely unknown cast) suffer from not having the slick glossy nature of american hollywood flims..this flim still rocks and was very effective in delivering a message and just being plain distrubing…i feel that this almost falls into the Zombie movie genere and i think it ranks with flimes like the original Dawn of the Dead and 28 days later..largely because of it’s cult feel and shocking scenes. As a husband and a father I felt for these people that had to submit their wifes and love ones to abuse and rape just to eat and live..anyone who says they did not feel for these characters needs to go have their morality pump checked..or get a heart for christ sakes!!! I bet if Lindsey Lohan or that foolish Angelina Jolie were cast in this flim you naysayers would be eating it up like candy!!!
Posted by kenya on May 6th, 2009As a fan of many of the actors in the film, I was disappointed with the execution of it. As frightening as the concept is, the film drags long enough to replace that tension with boredom. There is no exploration of the scientific side of the problem, which would be fine if they deeply probed the human condition and experience thru the ordeal; however, the treatment of that subject is surface at best. The film quickly devolves into a nut bin, but the only insanity is the complete lack of logic displayed by any of the characters. With some editing it could have been interesting at least, but sadly it’s more of a flop.
Posted by Cyphar on May 29th, 2009Leave a Reply