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Blindness (2008)

Director: Fernando Meirelles

Time Out rating

Average user rating

11 reviews

Synopsis

‘The Constant Gardener’ director returns home to direct a version of the Portuguese novelist José Saramango’s ‘unfilmable’ 1990s novel. Another ‘Diving Bell…’?

Movie review

From Time Out London

Despite its evident honesty, horrific visceral impact and its emergent moral and political idealism, this adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning Portuguese writer José Saramago’s eponymous allegorical novel must be considered a misfire from Fernando Meirelles, the Brazilian director of ‘City of God’ and ‘The Constant Gardener’.

Of a mixed North and Latin American cast, Julianne Moore (right) and Mark Ruffalo play the leads, as an opthalmologist and his wife who are first on the scene when an unexplained pandemic of blindness breaks out in an unnamed (but New York-evocative) metropolis. Meirelles initially mounts the film as a generic apocalyptic thriller – distant shots of traffic chaos as another victim is blinded – before modulating into, briefly, disease-of-the-week investigation and more extensively pressure-cooker horror as the stricken are imprisoned together by jack-booted soldiers and start descending, ‘Lord of the Flies’-style, into internecine savagery among near ‘Salò’-levels of degradation.

How thin is the veneer of civilisation? That is the question here, with a supplementary query on the differing responses of men and women in the face of moral panic and necessary sacrifice.
As most of us already know the answers to both, all we’re left with is the spectacle – one of fumbling men and women reduced to foetal positions or shooting at each other in the dark. Sadly, ‘Blindness’ may realise its director’s worst fear: to produce not only an exploitation B-movie but one, paradoxically, spoiled by its own integrity and misplaced ‘artistic’ mise-en-scène and intentions.

Author: Wally Hammond 2008-11-18 11:06:28

Time Out London Issue 1996, Nov 20-26, 2008

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User reviews of this film

Helen said...

Posted on Nov 09 2009 05:25 All I can say is that the author must have a very warped idea about human nature if he seriously believes that we would disintegrate into such evil,cruel and dysfunctional beasts following such an event. Equally implausible was the manner in which the majority were so easily controlled by the minority of brutish men who had but a single gun at their disposal, especially as the only sighted person who had the only real advantage was on the 'good' team.
Unrealistic and repulsive depiction of mankind when put to the test

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meticulous said...

Posted on Nov 04 2009 11:34 Contrary to most reviews, the problem with this film is not in its aesthetics, but in its massive, literally in-credible plotting. Its heroine turns out to be something of a selfish dolt, more worried about "being found out" than the dignity of those she's professing to help. In context, this leads to a really stupid situation any reasonable person would have resolved even before it had arisen.

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Laura and grant said...

Posted on Jun 28 2009 18:24 Oh my goodness me...... this is the truely WORST TERRIBLE PATHETIC excuse of a film.If your thinking of giving it a go we urge you not too..... its awful.

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Alex said...

Posted on Dec 15 2008 13:07 stupid irrelevant film. waste of time and money.

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João S Melo said...

Posted on Nov 29 2008 12:34 I saw the movie yesterday and i liked the first 3 minutes and the last 3. I am portuguese and i've tried to read saramago's books and his biggest mistake is that he assumes that 90% of the people in the world are evil and if they don't have police control they'll do the worst that they think of! that's not the world that I live in! Because if it was i'dd rather not live! But also Fernando Meireles(also in city of god, a great movie)produced scenes that are just sickening and perfectly avoidable! to be honest I didn't liked it. Not one bit.

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Archy said...

Posted on Nov 26 2008 17:17 Is this the worst film I've ever seen? Possibly, had I stayed to the end. At first it's occasionally unintentionally funny as the ludicrous plot unfolds, a candidate for a Golden Turkey Award if ever there was one. Then, as all the blind people descend into degeneracy, shit on the floor, indulge in rape etc it becomes merely sickening. Who ever penned this must have a view of people so low it doesn't bear thinking about. Utter bilge, of the worst kind - the kind that thinks it's saying something 'artistic'.

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ABID RAHMAN said...

Posted on Nov 25 2008 04:54 If you like films, where people go blind, turn nasty, start raping people, etc is your bag, then this is for you. On of the worst films I have ever seen. Preaching something, I can't seem to see.

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Tomás said...

Posted on Nov 23 2008 03:31 I saw the film...and it's simply amazing...another master pice of Fernando Meireles...maybe the best!!!! I don't agree with the critic of Wally Hammond...It's a very solid movie that requires much of intelligence and sensibility to be fully understood...

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Fabio Nabesima said...

Posted on Oct 08 2008 12:23 Hi, Can I watch this move yet in london? someone know where the cinema?
tks
FAbio

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Guy Andrade said...

Posted on Sep 27 2008 12:43 TimeOut should get someone who is able to write a proper review or else lose some serious amount of public.
This guy either doesn't know what he's doing or couldn't be bother to do proper research.
Also why on earth did he have to spoil the film by describing the last scene?

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Claudia said...

Posted on Mar 08 2008 12:39 José Saramago is a Portuguese Nobel Prize winner and not a Brazilian novelist...

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