Customer Reviews

Blindness

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

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.

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.

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

Seriously, must everything be "explained" to the modern day filmgoer so that he/she may feel better about their moviegoing experience?

This film is told from the perspective of the people afflicted with whatever was going around. And from their vantage point, there is no explanation. You're part of the outbreak which the government agencies need to clamp down on. No time for CNN or Fox News to let you know what's going on. Bam.. you're quarantined.

Anyway, if you are someone passive who still needs help understanding what's going on in the film, here's a few rational assumptions: an apparent airborne virus is spreading which affects the eyesight of the host. It's species specific (humans only), it's not zoonotic (so no animals are afflicted) and it's apparently not permanent (so the body's immune system eventually gets it under control and destroys it). Do you have influenza forever? No, your lymphocytes eventually isolate and kill the cells that harbor the viral machinery.

Now what was so hard about that? Why do people need every plot point spelled out for them?? Do your own thinking!

By the way, Blindess is one of the best film's of the year. I really don't understand the negative reviews. Is it bleak and depressing? Yes. But the events shown are what most likely would happen in a societal collapse. Sorry, but the primitive drive for survival is brutal. And people, at their deepest cores, are capable of the most vile despicable acts.

This film speaks the truth.

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, hording 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. This movie is much slower, much dirtier, and more real. The point of the movie was the human element and not the action. It is great. This movie is dirty to watch and will leave you feeling dirty. In a very adult, intelligent, thought-provoking manner.

This is a magnificent example of the depths, as well as the heights of human nature. This movie challenges the viewers to ask themselves how they would deal with extreme circumstances.
Although the movie mostly shows experiences through the eyes of the main character, it also makes the viewers feel a ghost of the feeling of blindness. Deeply real feeling to the whole movie. A mind opening film on subjects such as, justice, revenge, fear, and courage.

Having worked in some large institutions in the now distant past, I would have to say that the atmosphere and social dynamics are accurate. No myth, mystery or reification here, the author spun a convincing thought experiment and the filmmaker and excellent cast painted a very realistic and complete world within that construct. I vote a two thumbs up. A both wonderful and scary film that will definitely take you to that place, love it or hate it. You will feel it. And just when you... Hey... Hey, wait a minute! Maybe the blindness is just a metaphor for mendacity and intellectual mediocrity! The special effects were wonderful. Look for them.

This movie is probably one of those love it or hate it type movies. I don't know if I can even explain why I love this movie - I'm just fascinated by it! It haunts me and every time I see it on Cable I watch it. The experience of being blind and quarantined immediately like that and then being ignored by the powers that be is a screwed up reality nowadays. The music is appealing to me too. I could go on and on but I'll spare you!

Imagine one day you decide to logon to Amazon, to buy your favorite movie. Your eyes make their way to the search field, then they move to the keyboard giving the OK to your fingers to begin typing. Your eyes bounce back to the screen. You glance over at the time, but it's hard to see for some reason: something in your eyes is obstructing your view. You rub them gently, to get rid of whatever it is, but you notice it's now worst. You open your eyes wider, in an attempt at getting more light in your eyes, but nothing works. You rub them again, and nothing. You close your eyes and wait a while, and open them: nothing. You are scared now, what is happening? You rub them one last time out of futility, open them up as wide as you can, and realize the truth: you are now blind!

This is not a big budget movie, with stunts, and cool special effects, this is a work of art. This is a study into the nature of man (and women). This is what would happen if "smart" people develop the ultimate bioweapon, and unleash it on the population. This is what happens when a tree in the Rain Forest is cut down freeing a virus that causes blindness. This is a look into a potential experiment orchestrated by God to punish man for his sins. I can go on and on in speculation, asking how or why this happened, but this is what this movie does. It creates a curtain for you to peek in and see things you should not ever have see. It's ironic that this movie shows blind people in deplorable circumstances, but yet you can't seem to stop watching. You share the movie with Julian Moore's character, moving through the twisted earth, a world that has turned upside down, and is not the same place we once ruled. Civility and logic are replaced with unruliness and fear. The macabre scenes are surprising. They illicit pity, and remorse. You ask why this is happening, and hope to get an answer with each continuing chapter. After "seeing" Blindness, all I wanted to do was talk about it. I was excited to finish the movie and engage in conversation about the the deplorable nature of humanity in the face of adversity. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, what happens when there is no one to see your eyes?

This movie was the scariest, engrossing, best disaster film I've seen in a long time. Stories that take a group of people and put them in a position where all is lost, and nothing else matters but survival, and make them work together to solve a common goal or perish is what this author craves. A day later, I'm still thinking about Blindness. A year later, I bet it will still be on my mind. I was blind but now I can see. 5 stars.

The main problem with making a movie from this book is that the entire all-enveloping theme is that you remove yourself from the world of sight and find out how people and life are at their core, especially in an unexpected and horrific situation. This can be a little distracting when you're simply sitting and staring at it with your own presumably intact sight. Alot of impact of the metaphor and "symbolism" (if you can call it that without images?) delivered by Saramago's book relies on the fact that the characters can't see each other. For example, they introduce themselves by their jobs because their names are meaningless without faces to represent them. You can forget nuances like this while looking at the faces of the actors and assigning them identity as soon as they enter a scene.

Alot of the criticism obviously sprouts from a misunderstanding of the story. Why did the movie end this way? Because the book did. Why didn't they explain the blindness? Because it was written specifically to get you to focus on themes underscoring the surface plot and events. Why this, why that? The book, the book, the book. If anything, the director should be applauded for developing such a worthy shooting style and choosing scenes which were worthy efforts towards reimagining emotions and notions from the book. The colors were bland and washed out, the scenes were bare with very little musical score to speak of... all, if you were really paying attention, purposely brought about the same sense of desolation in the viewer that the characters must have been feeling. I'm sorry this wasn't a Sci-Fi Hollywood thrill ride, but it really shouldn't be and wasn't meant to be. Shame on you for suggesting such.