Adapted from the José Saramago novel and directed by Fernando Meirelles, Blindness, depicts the events of a sudden epidemic of blindness that sweeps across an unnamed city. Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore and Danny Glover star in this film adaptation. While one would think everything would go black, it actually goes white. The White Sickness as its called, slowly effects folks that come in contact with the infected.
The story starts off bringing us into an unnamed city during rush hour. People hustling and bustling everywhere, cars beeping their horns and then we zoom in on an unsuspecting man. He is not moving his car and people are rightly pissed off. While the camera takes on a long ride to get to him, you can make out that he is rubbing his eyes. He is shouting that he can’t see. He is blind.
We follow the strand of this sickness from this man onto everyone that he comes in contact with, his wife, the doctor who he visits (Ruffalo) and eventually to everyone they come in contact with. Its a large domino effect, a very large one.
Ruffalo gets home that night to what seems to be a marriage that is on the brinks. Moore plays a wife that seems to need a drink to get through the evenings at home. Going to bed early, leaving the doctor to his studies to this amazing sickness he encounters, she retires for the night.
Waking up the next morning proves to be an bad day for the doc. He cannot see either, at all! He is afraid to let his wife know or get to close due to it having an effect on everyone you come in contact with. This is where the true story begins. The doctor’s wife doesn’t go blind…at all! She is the only one that can see.
I won’t go into any more of the story as you can see this yourself if you so choose. But please be warned, while this movie is a struggle for humanity, pride and justice, it is one of very naked realism (no pun intended). Folks run around naked, there is rape involved, pillaging, basically anarchy to an extent in this film. Relationships are torn apart and made anew. The struggle that goes on in each person we meet in this film is strong, it definitely has an impact on the viewing audience.
While I would like to say I enjoyed this film, I did not. It’s not at all the film itself, its more the concept. Its depressing to think of things such as this happening to anyone you may love or come in contact with. The brutal honesty within the film kind of struck a chord with my senses along with others in the theater. I counted 7 people who left the film early.
The film can drag in places and then pick up just when you thought maybe it would end.
Overall I would probably not recommend this to anyone to see in the theater. No children at all should see this as its something that may leave a small imprint in my mind for a while. The movie itself was directed wonderfully. he scenes themselves were done well and thought out in a great way. Just the content matter itself is what I disliked. The bleakness, the white, the drab, the death…not something I look forward to spending two hours of my life contemplating.
