“All the same. No Pain. A sea of white.”
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king as the saying goes. This time mankind finds that they’re suffering from a plague of blindness and confined to an isolation ward. As time passes the inhabitants find that their humanity is as quick to disappear as their sight.
In an unknown city, a Japanese man (Yusuke Iseya) suddenly goes blind. A Thief (Don McKellar) takes the man home to his wife and also liberates him of his car. The blind man’s wife (Yoshino Kimura) arrives and takes the man to see an optometrist (Mark Ruffalo).
The doctor can find nothing wrong with the man’s eyes, he just can’t see. The doctor goes home to his wife (Julianne Moore) and tells her about the strange case. The next morning the doctor is blind as well. Two of the people in the doctor’s waiting room, the woman with the dark glasses (Alice Braga) and a man with an eye patch (Danny Glover) also go blind.
The government steps in and demands that all those afflicted with the sudden plague be confined to a government facility. The doctor’s wife wants to go with him but the police are not allowing her until she lies and says that she’s suddenly blind. All of the aforementioned characters winds up in ward one with the doctor and his wife.
Ward Three is not as lucky to have a cool head such as the doctor’s in charge. The deranged Bartender (Gael Garcia Bernal) declares himself the “King of Ward Three” and confiscates all of the food and demands that the other wards pay him if they want to eat.
He thinks he has an upper hand since the Accountant (Maury Chaykin) had been blind from birth and knows how to get around. Since the doctor has kept his wife’s ability to see a secret no one knows that she’s the only one that can still see. The government outside begins to crumble as the plague spreads and the conditions in the wards begin to reflect the chaos that is outside.
It only takes a small change to bring about the end of humanity or to make humanity revert back to their bestial nature is the message of Blindness. It’s not a particularly uplifting film, but it does seem to offer some hope by the time the credits roll.
It also shows how governments and bureaucracies are more likely to pontificate and promise more than actually helping the people out. The film is based on the 1995 novel by Jose Saramago about social degradation and the fragility of civilization.
The characters are known by general descriptions and no one is given personalization such as a name. The level-headed doctor starts off as the leader of the group and comes up with good plans, thanks to his wife being able to see, but he too succumbs to the bleakness of their plight and is mentally crushed under the strain.
His wife may have the power of sight but she too falls into the wheels of the machine and comes out in a pulp on the other side. It seems that it doesn’t take long for unlevel heads to muscle in and bring madness to the group housed in the wards - though its not like madness hadn’t already infected the governmental agencies that quarantined and forgot about them in the first place.
It’s an extremely well acted film, but be prepared for some gloom. The film is shot with very “white,” washed out camera work to replicate the whiteness that causes the characters to lose their vision. It’s a very affective trick that makes you think that your vision might be going too.
Blindness is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include the expansive 60 minute “making of” entitled “A Vision of Blindness” and 6 minutes of deleted scenes, with what appear to be text introductions by the director.
Blindness seems to being heading toward nihilism, but by the time the credits roll there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully mankind will have learned their lesson presented by the lost of sight and develop some insight into the human condition and make their world a better place.
Blindness is now available at Amazon . It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a March 30th release. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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