© Media dis&dat blog
I just saw an early screening of "Blindness" thanks to my membership in the Maryland Film Festival, and can honestly report on how dull and plotless it is. Two audience members walked out after 20 minutes and about five others left later and never came back. It's tedious, boring and filmed in a way that I'm sure is meant to be provocative and artsy, but the constant use of extreme closeups forces one to look deep into an actor's pores and count Julianne Moore's freckles. Another "trick" of the film was to try to simulate the "blindness" in the film, which was called white blindness so there were lots of shots of a white screen and blurry figures as people went blind.
As for the blindness theme, I can now understand why the author of the book on which it was based, José Saramago, never really wanted a screen adaptation. Its plotless chaos is not a narrative for film.
The film follows the collapse of society as everyone becomes blind from some kind of infectious disease that causes "white blindness," meaning instead of everything being dark, everything is bright white. I'm no Pollyanna who is in denial about the evil and immoral side of the human race, but so many things that happened in the film seemed completely implausible. Guards shooting people who wandered out of the line getting onto a bus or the plunge into decay and debauchery just a few days after being quarantined for the blind "sickness."
I had question after question while watching (probably because I was so bored), If Julianne Moore's character was immune to blindness, surely there were many other people who also had immunity? But my biggest question was, Where are the blind people who existed before the "sickness"?
About an hour into the film, a blind-from-birth character was revealed. (Here's another place where the production could have hired a blind actor for the role.) And that revelation had me re-writing the script in my head.
I found myself wishing the film was not based on a book, because I would have taken the premise in a whole different direction. If suddenly the world becomes blind, who would be able to take charge and teach people everything they would need to know to survive -- blind people! (And my movie would have employed blind actors for all those roles.)
The film did mention this idea of the power of someone who already knows how to live as a blind person, but did nothing with it. The blind-from-birth character had little power, was imprisoned
like everyone else and was the sidekick to the "bad guy" in the quarantine hospital.
My prediction is that this film will fade quickly. It's directed toward an audience (like me) who prefers foreign and independent films, which is a small segment of the movie-going public. They have pretty discerning tastes, and without Oscar buzz, they won't go to the theaters for a dud like this.
The acting is fine, but I would expect that from talents like Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo. Sadly, Danny Glover is only in a few scenes.
The most bizarre part of film (but it gave all of us in the audience a laugh, and we were desperate for something to keep us interested) was when the "bad guy" (none of the characters have names) played by Gael García Bernal got on the PA system of the quarantine hospital and told everyone he was taking over what little food they had and was going to "charge" the others for it and then began singing "I just called to say I love you" by Stevie Wonder. (I can't decide if this scene was making a joke at the expense of blind people or was just putting some much-needed fun into a dull scene.)
Finally, the film is not visual impairment-friendly. It's very visual, with little dialogue in parts, and the sections of the film that focused on the first person to become blind, played by the Japanese actor Yusuke Iseya, and his wife, played by Yoshino Kimura, were in Japanese with English subtitles.
One last criticism -- Isn't its movie poster creepy and weird? (It depicts a bunch of hands touching Julianne Moore's face.) Thankfully, the only blind character in the film who touched Julianne Moore's face was her husband. The poster perpetuates an old-fashioned and incorrect stereotype that blind people walk up to sighted people and ask to touch their face. As I have said from the beginning of my commenting about this film, I just wish the production team would have had some in-depth discussions with some blindness organizations. Then maybe they wouldn't create movie posters, or movie content, that's so off-base.
