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Blindness

Country: USA, Language: English, 121 mins

  • Director: Fernando Meirelles
  • Writer: José Saramago; Don McKellar
  • Producer: Nicolas Aznarez; Andrea Barata Ribeiro

CGiii Comment

See how and what we really are...it is not a very pleasant sight at all.

It has all the skilful hallmarks of Meirelles - unfortunately, it's the screenplay that lets this down.

Admittedly, it is an extremely difficult task to adapt Saramago's novel...but, the novel's complexity is totally ignored - surprising since Meirelles is a director who can cope easily with the multi-layered, non-linear narrative (The Constant Gardener).

The film actually does feel too restrained - with such material, the director could have gone berserk - especially in the sex scenes.

Does blindness affect sexual attraction? Just one of the important questions raised...but, never answered.

However, it is a carefully sculpted piece that fails to deliver the constant hard punches that it ought to have done.


Trailer...

 

The(ir) Blurb...

A city is ravaged by an epidemic of instant "white blindness". Those first afflicted are quarantined by the authorities in an abandoned mental hospital where the newly created "society of the blind" quickly breaks down. Criminals and the physically powerful prey upon the weak, hoarding the meager food rations and committing horrific acts. There is, however, one eyewitness to the nightmare. A woman whose sight is unaffected by the plague follows her afflicted husband to quarantine. There, keeping her sight a secret, she guides seven strangers who have become, in essence, a family. She leads them out of quarantine and onto the ravaged streets of the city, which has seen all vestiges of civilization crumble.

Cast & Characters

Yusuke Iseya as First Blind Man;
Jason Bermingham as Driver #1;
Eduardo Semerjian as Concerned Pedestrian #1;
Don McKellar as Thief;
Cica Meirelles as Driver #2;
Antonio Fragoso as Concerned Pedestrian #2;
Lilian Blanc as Concerned Pedestrian #3;
Douglas Silva as Onlooker #1;
Daniel Zettel as Onlooker #2;
Yoshino Kimura as First Blind Man's Wife;
Joe Pingue as Taxi Driver;
Susan Coyne as Receptionist;
Danny Glover as Man with the Black Eye Patch;
Fabiana Guglielmetti as Mother of the Boy;
Mitchell Nye as Boy