32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome movie!, October 31, 2009
Wow, why does this have such a low rating on IMDB and why does so many people hate it? The only answer that I can come up with is that most of the people that hate it are teens that don't know the meaning of "plot hole". There's no plot hole in this movie. The fact that there's no explanation why people become blind is not a plot hole, it's just not an important detail. Saying that it's plot hole is just like saying that the fact there's no explanation why people become zombies in Dawn Of The Dead is a plot hole. It's not a plot hole, it's just not what the movie is about. It was intentionally not explained. Anyway, it's an awesome movie! It's not only entertaining, it's also sad, disturbing, powerful and I could go on and on and on! I'm pretty sure that it's the only movie that made me go from sad to disturbed to happy and to sad again!
Short review, I know, but I'm just not good at writting reviews. I just hope that it's atleast slightly helpful.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Blind Bud, July 29, 2009
It is easy to understand why this film received such terrible reviews. "Blindness" is a very difficult film to swallow; it's largely unpleasant, cynical and even disgusting. But is this portrayal of humanity farfetched, a sloppy exaggeration of human beings' capacity for baseness? One need only look back in history to find the answer. In short, this is not a film which you emerge from feeling "warm and squishy", although if one makes it through the end that -may- be possible.
Many of the criticisms are aimed at the lack of plot development. But this would be like calling "The Ring" a terrible movie on the basis of its inadequacy in explaining how a girl can walk out of a television set. Or claiming that "Mrs. Doubtfire" was awful because Robin Williams' accent was actually Scottish and not English. There are films that are intended to petrify and others which amuse; the purpose of "Blindness" is neither. It is not a well-defined plot which drives this movie, but rather thematic elements and experimental imagery. With that in mind the cause of and solution to this epidemic blindness, the explanation behind the Doctor's Wife's immunity and answers to similar questions become irrelevant.
The realism of this film also comes into question, when it pertains to mass hysteria. The likelihood of these particular events seems as questionable as if nearly everyone adopted a code of altruism with the knowledge that blindness is now a highly contagious epidemic with no foreseeable cure. The sudden removal of sight does not promote calm. Which doctors and scientists would offer to conduct tests on the quarantined knowing that they could very well lose their sight as well and end up joining them? On speculation, the sudden loss of sight is not something easily and quickly adapted, and certainly not in the conditions portrayed in the movie.
There was also another controversy concerning several organizations for the blind having a negative view of this film. Again, this is understandable. However, the film was not merely about blindness as a physical disability, nor was its tagline: "All Blind People Are Evil". Instead blindness was used as a device with regards to mass hysteria and, of course, as a metaphor. Blindness as an affliction was inessential.
If we restrict films to only those which leave us immediately sated with contentment, then I think we have relegated film into a mere distraction and not also as a form of art. In doing so, our mirrors become unbalanced and realities warped.
We need the bitter to taste the sweet.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Underrated and masterful, July 31, 2009
The Bottom Line:
Director Fernando Meirelles and his screenwriter Don McKellar actually improve on the source novel with this excellent and intelligent film that expertly portrays what Saramagos' "white blindness" might do to society and enlarges upon the allegorical themes of the book; inexplicably reviled by most critics and a film that some seem to find sordid, Blindness was one of the best and most thought-provoking movies of 2008.
3.5/4
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