Blindness (2008)

I adored the book, it was both powerful and thought-provoking. The adaptation is fairly decent but I just didn't like it as much. It was gritty, well filmed but I expected more, way more. The movie felt somewhat censored to me for lack of a better term. I do give credit to the director for the clever way his characters go blind and his plays on light. The plot is interesting and mysterious making you wonder what is happening and how you would react to certain situations. Julianne Moore gave a restrained quality performance and the rest of the international cast was OK but not outstanding. I think it's another case where I should have watched the film before reading the book.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Fmovies: This one gets a 10 out of 10. The very title and premise of this movie was intriguing to me. While we are caught up in the rat race. Wondering how to pay the bills, make the next dollar, worrying about recession, etc... what happens if we all suddenly just go blind. It is true that some of the most basic things that we take for granted that we should be thankful for -- gets lost in a rat-race called life. I knew I would enjoy the very premise of this movie as it shows that depth of how a first world country can go if one of the most basic gifts of sight were deprived. It wouldn't take a very long time for things to become anarchic.

I've been reading through all the comments because I didn't want to say something that wasn't said before. However, I want to defend this movie against some criticisms.

First of all, people are saying that Julian Moore's character waited a bit too late to use her weapon or do something. I think that this actually makes the movie more realistic and is a strength. A character that has never killed before, and is killing for the first time has to be taken beyond a breaking-point in order to cross that boundary. This makes sense with me and I do not understand why people are criticizing this element.

Second complaint common is demanding of goods or valuables if the place is already quarantined. I defend this movie in this respect because I think that to be appreciated, you have to give it latitude by trying to connect with it's overall message, even if it may be metaphorical at the expense of realism. You cant take a movie like this too literal -- you simply have to understand what it is saying -- which is the downward spiral when the rules of society collapse -- and learning to be thankful for some of the things that get lost that's really important in the rat-race we are all called up in.

Thirdly, the complaints of the gore, violence, and rape -- it was rated a restricted movie -- you are viewing at your own risk.

This movie has touched me and I'm glad that I have rented. If for not anything else, but at least helping me to see life beyond the rat-race that we are all glued to and imagining what could happen if one of the most precious gifts that we are all blessed with -- that of vision -- were deprived of everyone for just a length of time what would happen.

THAT -- in itself has got me thinking. There is no higher rating than 10/10 -- so that's the best I can do. I feel happy that something woke me out of the rat-race and see the blue sky -- it was this movie.

An adaptation of the allegorical eponymous novel by Jose Saramago. It tells the story of a group of people who are confined in an old abandoned asylum by the Government after the spread of a global pandemic of a strange contagious white blindness.

The movie follows well the book story, but completely forgets the human and social critique, and the philosophical and political questions embedded in it. In fact, the original title of the book is Essay on Blindness, and it is part of a series of philosophical-literary essays on different themes related to humanity, social and political structures. In other words, the soul and insight of the book are lost in translation.

The book is confronting, shocking and much harder and darker than the movie. The movie is a succession of weird shocking events that have no point, a confrontation between good and evil in an apocalyptic world... Wrong and simplistic. This is so because the scriptwriter and the director missed the most important elements of the book, or, simply, thought that the viewer would not want or understand more complexity.

Part of my disappointment has to do with the acting. Most of the actors are uninspired and badly directed, and some of them miscast. I did not believe them at all in their roles, especially Ruffalo and Moore, who seem not to believe the roles they are playing or the circumstances in which they are placed. I found stereotypical and offensive the use a Hispanic -played by Gael Garcia Bernal- as the bad guy; I mean, that's typical of mainstream stupid Hollywood movies, and it was not in Saramago's book.

It is great that we can experience the white textured involving blindness that the characters suffer, which is beautifully portrayed in the movie. However, there is too much clarity and whiteness in the movie, which is overwhelmingly white and on-purpose blinding, so we, the viewers, become a little blind too. I did not thing that was necessary. I think the director could have shown the white blindness from the point of view of the people getting blind, so the viewer can imagine what it is like, and then make the movie darker and moodier. The viewer is going to watch the movie, but cannot be part of it.

Miralles shows his savoir-faire in some of the most difficult scenes, the ones involving the women going to ward 3, shot with great sensitivity (they are raw and disturbing in the book), more suggesting than showing, creating and atmosphere that shows the drama but not the raw facts. It works perfectly. I also found great the depiction of the desolated city, the chaos and dirtiness the city -unnamed- is reduced to, and the life of the gangs of blind people and dogs in the streets. The music is beautiful -a mix of ethereal, quirky, strange and delicate elements- and serves the story very well. To add another positive element, Saramago's book is not easy to read, among other things, because of his literary style, so the movie is an easier approach to the story and it is still interesting.

Saramago, who never agreed to sell the rights of any of his books to any film producer, did so in this case and after a long negotiation. Miralles directed the movie always having Saramago in mind, and what he would think about his cinematographic options while adapting the novel. Saramago attended, side by side with Miralles, the premier of the movie. A video in Youtube (watch?v=7XzBkM_LdAk), shows the end of the movie, in which Saramago is visibly moved, and says that he feels as happy at watching the movie as he did wh

Blindness fmovies. "If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed", said the great Stanley Kubrick, who adapted most of his films from novels and turned them into his own films, rather than being too literal (or faithful, if you prefer) to the source material (and often turning authors and fans of the adapted novels crazy – Stephen King, anyone?). I agree with his statement. No literary work is "unfilmable" – which doesn't necessarily mean any literary work, good or bad, can be turned into a good movie. However, in spite of a few flaws, "Blindness" is a very efficient adaptation of a brilliant (and very complex) novel by Portuguese author José Saramago, "Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira" (literally, "Essay About Blindness"), and doesn't deserve all the bad reviews it's been getting.

The negative reaction towards the film doesn't surprise me at all, though. Fernando Meirelles, after getting world acclaim with his neoclassic "City of God", made a very successful transition to an international project with the beautiful "The Constant Gardener". His sophomore English project is very daring and dark, uneasy to watch at times, but also compelling and thought-provoking.

César Charlone's exquisite cinematography sets the tone for the story of an unexplained "white blindness" epidemic. It's also a huge asset to have such a phenomenal actress like Julianne Moore to play the film's heroine: as always, she has a strong presence and is extremely expressive, making everyone believe and feel for her character's cross of being the only one who can see in a chaotic quarantine, where people have to submit to violence and rape in order to survive.

My only major complaint is about the uneven first 20 minutes or so: some sequences seem a little disjointed and the acting somewhat amateurish, but once the first act is done the film finds its own pace and strength. Roger Ebert called it "one of the most unpleasant, not to say unendurable, films" he's ever seen. For a start, it would be stupid to assume a film with such a dark premise would be uplifting (and if Ebert had the slightest knowledge about the material it's based on, he'd realize what he was up for), so his comment is unintelligent and atrocious like the majority of everything he's ever written (but he's a widely popular Pulitzer-winning film critic, so unfortunately lots of people trust his opinion before going to see a movie). Even though I still prefer the outstanding novel to the film, I admire director Fernando Meirelles and writer Don McKellar's adaptation for what it is: smart, daring and respectful to its source material, without being overtly faithful or afraid of taking risks. And Saramago himself approved the film, so who are we to criticize? The man knows what he's talking about; if you want to see it for yourself, read his novel now and then compare it to this film, appreciating it not as a literary work, but as the good piece of cinema it is. 8/10.

Sometimes I wonder. At times, it seems that we all have some shared cinematic values — that some art can reach us all. Sure, we usually sacrifice depth in the process, but that's a small enough occasional price for the joy of laughing with a crowd. It is no small part of the experience, that shared dark room with no remote control.

So when I see a movie like this, I wonder why it doesn't fit the niche. It is extraordinarily well done. The eye is used to convey not only narrative movement — as usually is desired — but situated group emotion as well. It does this in a straightforward, effective way. It is high cinema, but not requiring deciphering. Some visual episodes here simply took my breath away. They worked, all of them that I got, because Julianne understood what they were and how to support them.

The story has allegorical elements about society and family, humanness and knowing. I would have preferred that they be more subtle, more Chinese. But they worked. You could see the balance, the perfect weighing of values, the texture from a Nobel-level writer.

So this should have been embraced by everyone. High visual art with accessible vocabulary and visceral effect. Obvious allegory, but with rich immediate motion. Several unexpected turns. But for some reason it wasn't. As I knew this going in, it became a sort of parallel context that was carried along. This was absolutely pummeled by the newspaper writers, not critics really; just reporters of a supposed banal zeitgeist.

Viewers on IMDb were not so savage, but this, like "Children of Men" did not get the exposure it deserved. The business about goodness grown from being forced to live on the periphery of dangerous tribe simply did not carry from "City of God" to here, though the similarities are striking.

So I wonder whether it is me that is blind here, in celebrating this, or the other way.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I expected an over-the-top action flick, a-la Mad Max style or I Am Legend style. This movie was much slower, much dirtier, and more real. It was more like the BOOK "I Am Legend." The point of the flick was the human element and not the action. It was great.

Having said that, I should have waited to rent it. The audience sitting around me was not intelligent enough to appreciate it -- nor intelligent enough to shut up during the movie. Their chattiness seemed to be born out of boredom. Shame.

I wondered how the movie would end. And at 2 hours long I had plenty of time to think about it. I could not guess it. Perhaps someone smarter, or who thinks in more obvious terms could have guessed it. But I was surprised by it. And it really leaves you thinking. That is, if you were thinking during the movie up to that point.

This movie is dirty to watch and will leave you feeling dirty. In a very adult, intelligent, thought-provoking manner. I write few reviews. This movie moved me to write a review.