'Blindness' an attack of the metaphor
By Nick Knittel, Staff Writer
October 8, 2008 | noon
As ironic as it may be, “Blindness,” the adaptation of the novel by Pulitzer Prize winner José Saramago, is a delight for eyes but is weighed down by an unapologetic and forceful metaphor.
The story goes like this: In an unnamed city, an epidemic of blindness emerges. It begins slowly, starting with a man in his car (Yusuke Iseya, literally billed in the credits as “First Blind Man”) who suddenly loses all vision without reason. His wife takes him to the aid of a local eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo) who finds himself unable to explain the cause. From there, in a striking series of scenes, the disease spreads to the patients in his waiting room and then to all the various people with whom they come in contact.
The disease continues to move unabated. Society, as it is wont to do, begins to break down. In a panic, the government decides to quarantine the infected in an abandoned series of buildings outside the city. Of all the people infected, and for reasons unexplained, only the doctor’s wife (Julianne Moore) appears to be immune. As her husband succumbs to the disease, she slips into a quarantine ward with him and the two find themselves bludgeoned half to death with a metaphor of striking proportions.
Oh, sorry. Spoiler alert.
Get it? They’re blind! They can’t see! This message is thrown out with such forcefulness that it’s almost as if the film was worried you had forgotten the basic premise, or at least the title. Sure, it’s a cute metaphor, but it’s taken with such steadfastness that it nearly pontificates. The only problem is that there is very little consideration as to what it is exactly we’re being told. Is this a political allegory? A religious one? It’s spread so wide that the characters aren’t even given names (Get it? They represent us! Crazy!)
Such broad strokes may allow the film to lend itself to pretty much any view one wishes to argue, but the film fails to deliver the careful, specific jabs that such a tale of morality needs to make itself interesting. It’s one thing to use symbolism, but it should never come as a cost to storyline, of which “Blindness” unfortunately fails to deliver.
That’s pretty surprising considering the director, Fernando Meirelles, is responsible for the amazing films “City of God” and “The Constant Gardener,” a one-two punch of such quality that it’s almost uncanny. While Meirelles comes up light on the story elements, he does a stunning job with the film's visual design. Filters and color saturation as well as striking camerawork and production design are used to effectively display a world where sight has been lost. The world feels just as lost as the protagonists, and the film brings to mind the bombed-out English countryside that made “Children of Men” so haunting.
Meirelles doesn’t shy away from the more disturbing elements of the film. As the integrity of the quarantine wards begins to break down, he refuses to hide from the graphic encounters and social dynamics which lend the film the kind of credibility that was lost in the writing.
Julianne Moore is by far the strongest element of the film, creating a dynamic and powerful female character that is able to take charge without feeling false or contrived. Unfortunately, she’s one of the only characters to really do so. Everybody else, from Danny Glover as the aptly named “Man with the Black Eye Patch” and Alice Braga as the “Woman With The Dark Glasses,” comes off as ineffective and badly used. Even Mark Ruffalo, who is usually the most reliable actor in the business today, is not given enough to do. The only other standout performance is from Gael García Bernal as a bartender-turned-self-imposed-king of the rival quarantine ward. Bernal effectively leads his character to the darkest of places without pantomime, but still lacks the well-rounded nature of Moore’s character.
Overall, “Blindness” is a disappointment. The film manages to hit a few good ideas, but stumbles just as often as its characters. "Blindness" lacks the hard plot line to lead the viewers toward the heavy-handed meaning it so badly wishes to convey.
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“Blindness”
Speakeasy Rating: C-
Run Time: 120 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated R for violence including sexual assaults, language and sexuality/nudity.