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Web-Exclusive Review: Blindness
Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 02-Oct-08 @ 05:15 PM
DRAMABlindness (MIRAMAX) STARS > Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael García Bernal, Danny Glover DIRECTOR > Fernando Meirelles RATING > 4/5 OPENS > Oct. 3 In the never-ending wake of 9/11, fear has become the national narrative, and plague movies are nothing if not the reflection of that fear and the entertainment-based extension of that narrative. It could be argued that Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (released in the U.K. in November 2002 and in the U.S. in June 2003) set the tone with its zombie-bloodlust virus and that 2006's Children Of Men (based on P.D. James' 1992 novel of the same name) upped the humanity ante by portraying a world in which babies are no longer born. Regardless of the form the affliction takes, the narrative is the same: A scourge descends upon the populous, the government and/or military temporarily imposes what little order it can, but chaos prevails as the citizens of Earth are reduced to fighting for survival in some horrific Lord Of The Flies scenario. So it makes perfect sense that a movie like Blindness, adapted from Portuguese author José Saramago's 1995 novel of the same name, is hitting theaters during the ongoing War On Terror. In the film, a mysterious plague or "white sickness" (allusions of a bio-terror attack, though this is never mentioned outright) descends upon the populous, causing blindness and, ultimately, mass chaos. The government steps in, quarantines the victims, and leaves them to fend for themselves in a concrete holding tank surrounded by armed guards. When an ophthalmologist (Ruffalo) is stricken with the disease, his wife (Moore) pretends she's also blind so they won't be separated. As their quarantine unit fills up with more and more victims--including the Japanese businessman who gave the doctor the disease (Yusuke Isaya from Sukiyaki Western Django), his wife (Yoshino Kimura, also from Sukiyaki Western Django), a bartender (Bernal), a prostitute (Alice Braga) and an old man with an eye patch (Glover)--hygiene conditions worsen, food becomes scarce, and the principals find themselves locked into a depraved scenario where rape, murder and putrefaction reign. Visually captivating and emotionally visceral as it is, Blindness can be difficult to watch at times. And that's probably because the brutal social degradation that takes place onscreen is all too plausible. When human instinct is forced into bare subsistence in the absence of law, order, cleanliness and morality, things can get extremely fucking ugly. This, and a few painfully average humans' ability to deal with it as best they can, is where Blindness draws its raw power from. It is deeply depressing, truly horrifying, mercilessly bleak and ultimately hopeful, but hopeful in a way that shows the nuances of flawed characters who act the way any of us might when confronted with the same grim--and again, all-too-plausible--situation. When it becomes clear that some of the more brain-searing scenes in this film will be lingering in the psyche for a while, one might feel inclined to ask whether plague films suit some nefarious purpose. What effect--subliminal or otherwise--do depictions of mass chaos and plague scenarios have on the movie-going public? And who, if anyone, benefits from the nationwide dissemination of those depictions? Here's another example, same idea, different theme: Did HBO's The Wire, a show about Baltimore cops catching bad guys with the use of wiretaps, ultimately serve to demonstrate the "necessity" of the Patriot Act and the wiretapping bill that recently sailed through Congress? In Blindness, the bad guy takes the form of a brown man with a gun (Bernal, in a fantastic performance) seizing the rations of the entire quarantine unit and then demanding valuables and, eventually, sex in exchange for food. What not-so-latent fears could this character possibly be playing upon, especially when his presence is combined with a plague of unknown origin? Of course, Saramago wrote his novel well before the 9/11 attacks, and the fact that the film's director, Fernando Meirelles, the man behind the hyper-color favela masterpiece City Of God and the Oscar-feted The Constant Gardener, is Brazilian, doesn't support this theory. On the other hand, Blindness is being released by Miramax, which is owned by Disney, one of the most powerful media corporations on the planet. And we all know that the most powerful corporations on the planet are only looking out for our best interests. --J. Bennett |
I can't wait. I loved Children Of Men..so naturally this is the next step