Review: ‘Blindness’

Travis:

Two words to describe ‘Blindness’… bizarre and disappointing. In theory, the concept was great. The movie begins with a man suddenly and spontaneously losing his sight while driving through a busy downtown district. As a result, traffic is halted and the “very best” of people comes out. In an effort to assist the blind man, a pedestrian offers to drive him home. The pedestrian turns out to be a thief and con man, taking the opportunity to steal the blind man’s car after dropping him off at home. It’s a short-lived score, however, because the “whatever” that caused the man’s blindness is apparently contagious and the thief  is stricken with blindness later that night. This progresses on to “infect” the remaining cast of main characters, including a specializing eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo), a high-class female escort (Alice Braga), a small boy and an elderly man (Danny Glover)  who already wears an eye patch. In case you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned the character’s names, it’s because they apparently don’t have any. No names are ever used in the movie.

The epidemic continues to spread as the main characters willingly place themselves in government quarantine, led by the doctor and his wife (Julianne Moore), who mysteriously ends up being the only human not affected by this “thing” of blindness. At first, the group fares well, reluctantly working together until more and more people begin to show up with the same condition. Before long, the quarantine ward is over-populated, food and water is running low and the health and sanitary conditions become a threat in and of themselves. The military gaurds outside treat them quarantined captives like lepers, refusing to help when needed or offer much needed additional food and medical supplies. The doctor’s wife (Moore) increasingly finds herself struggling with the realization that she’s having to care for an entire ward of newly blind adults, but continues to do so out of a sense of duty.

Things become even more difficult when ward three, led by “the king” (Gael Garcia Bernal), decided they are going to keep all of the food rations and distribute them as they see fit. This send the film into it’s somewhat downward spiral. “The King of Ward Three” (Bernal) adds an element of ‘Lord of the Flies’ while the situation itself gives the film an element of ‘Doomsday’ or ’28 Days Later’. This shift of power results in the rapid downfall of quarantine community, leading to some horrific scenes of humanity’s darkest sides. The middle portion of the film seems to dwell on the concept that when put into a situation like this, human beings revert to their most primal nature. This act of the story deals with the corruption of power and greed, fueled by the emotions of fear and paranoia.

After some time, things have changed and an opportunity arises allowing the surviving quarantined citizens to free themselves. The world has been devastated by this “happening” and the mood shifts dramatically towards a theme of hope and renewal in a world of survival of the fittest, populated by blind people. The group manages to make their way back to the doctor’s house where they dig in to live. This is when the film begins to suffer from the “when should I end” syndrome. The story begins to drag tremendously at this point and then finally ends. It’s not even that the “epidemic” is never explained that bothers me. I’m not a person that demands everything be explained, preferring the writer allow me to figure some things out for myself. What does bother me is the rather bi-polar nature of the story’s tone and the fact that the only character that’s developed at all is the doctor’s wife who can see (Moore), but even she remains relatively unfamiliar. We never grow to care about or empathize with any of the characters. It’s sort of like watching a very strange episode of ‘Big Brother’.

At times the movie is dramatically driven and intends to make you care for the characters and their situation, but at other times the story is handled with a very dark touch of subtle, but wicked humor that seems out of place with the rest of the film. One scene in particular I found disturbing is when Moore’s character was leading a human chain of blind women through the corridors to ward three to “pay for” food rations for ward one. It’s a very intense moment, but the music chosen for this scene is very carnival in nature, creating an awkward scene that doesn’t evoke the serious nature of what is about to happen. Overall, ‘Blindness’ occasionally has some interesting elements and some decent performances, but the story seems unclear as to it’s purpose and the execution of the story leaves much to be desired.

[rating:2/5]

Jeremy:

The concept behind ‘Blindness’, that of a global epidemic of blindness and the way society falls underneath it, is both interesting and profound. Â  There were several things director Fernando Mereilles (‘City of God’, ‘The Constant Gardener’) could have done with this story. Â  There were many different ways the story could have played out. Â  The choices made in the execution of ‘Blindness’, however, are absurd and downright unpleasant.

Early in the film, the epidemic is already spreading fast. Â  Anyone who comes into contact with someone infected goes blind within a matter of hours. Â  The first 10-15 minutes of the film are quite interesting as we see people who are clearly infected coming into contact with familiar faces, faces we know we will see again later on in the film. Â  It is something that Wolfgang Petersen attempted to do in ‘Outbreak’ but failed. Â  It is one of the only thing ‘Blindness’ does right.

After the infection spreads, people are quarantined in a government-run prison. Â  An eye doctor and his wife are the first to enter the facility, but there’s a catch. Â  His wife, for inexplicable reasons, is immune to the disease. Â  She just doesn’t want to leave her husband’s side, so she pretends to be blind, as well.

Soon, the facility is overrun by the infected blind, abandoned by the government to fend for themselves. Â  And this is where the biggest issues I have with ‘Blindness’ arise. Â  I know the government isn’t perfect. Â  I know there are immoral elements about the government, but I didn’t buy for one minute that these people would just be thrown into a make-shift prison and left to fend for themselves. Â  

We see very little of what is going on in the outside world. Â  We get a short, little explanatory scene from Danny Glover about how the scientists were working on a cure, but they, themselves, became infected. Â  It’s a clunky scene in of itself, and it doesn’t help that Glover isn’t a very good actor.

This idea that the government would abandon people infected with a contagious disease is something that was brought up in ‘Doomsday’ earlier this year, a film that I actually liked. Â  The difference being that film was made for pure entertainment. Â  Here, it’s like the story is trying to depict a realistic version of what would happen if the whole world goes blind. Â  It’s not believable for one second.

Things in ‘Blindness’ just happen for no reasonable purpose other to service the next scene. Â  Likewise, characters do things that are both very uncharacteristic of how they were introduced and very unbelievable. Â  Julianne Moore plays the doctor’s wife. Â  Being the only person in the hospital who can see, she helps out as best as she can. Â  However, once another ward in the hospital, led by Gael Garcia Bernal, decides to take all the government-issued food for themselves, she does nothing to stop it. Â  Never mind the fact that all the people in this one ward just decided to become animals, this woman decides to just let it happen. Â  She takes the famous quote of “in the world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king” and throws it in the trash. Â  And I know all about groupthink and bystander apathy, I just don’t buy it for this story.

Basically, what should have been a realistic and unnerving film about a global epidemic, a la ’28 Days Later’ becomes an absurd take on ‘Lord of the Flies’. Â  It doesn’t achieve anything that ‘Lord of the Flies’ hasn’t already achieved. Â  It even sets itself up in a situation that is far more distant than what was told in ‘Lord of the Flies’. Â  At least in that story, the children are stranded on a deserted island. Â  These people are just thrown into a building and forgotten about.

The characters are nameless, because this could happen to anyone, right? Â  The location is also nameless, because this could happen anywhere. Â  It’s a choice that completely backfires on the film. Â  The story is so distanced from the audience anyway that giving the people in the film a name or a backstory might have helped in our empathy for them. Â  Placing it in a real location like New York City or London would have also helped ground the film into reality. Â  ’28 Days Later’ proved that.

The story plods along, more or less basking in the glow of its own uneasiness, and then the third act kicks in. Â  We finally see the outside world and what has become of everyone, but that, too, is very uninteresting. Â  It also just meanders about for another 30-40 minutes before the film finally ends.

The only two good things about ‘Blindness’ are elements that are very good, almost great. Â  One is Mereilles visual style. Â  Everything is flushed with white and overexposed, and it provides some beautiful shots. Â  Also great is the performance by Yusuke Iseya, who plays the ‘First Blind Man’. Â  He is the only believable character in the film, and Iseya’s performance is breathtakingly pure. Â  Unfortunately, he quickly becomes relegated to a third-string, background character. Â  We had to give more time to Julianne Moore not doing anything, you see.

‘Blindness’ fails on so many levels, and it is very unfortunate. Â  The people involved, both behind and in front of the camera, are all very gifted, and the idea behind the film could have easily made up a frightening and philosophical story. Â  Unfortunately, fright and metaphor melt away into absurdity and awkwardness, and, in the end, ‘Blindness’ does very little to fix that.

[rating:2/5]