BLINDNESS
Directed by Fernando Meirelles
Produced by Niv Fichman, Andrea Barata Ribeiro & Sonoko Sakai
Written by Don McKeller, based on the novel by José Saramago
Released by Miramax
Canada/Brazil/Japan. 122 min. Rated R
With Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gabriel García Bernal, Alice Braga, Yusuke Iseya, Yoshino Kimura, Don McKellar, Maury Chaykin & Mitchell Nye

Blindness is the film adaptation of a searing, politically astute, beautifully written dystopian thriller by a Portuguese Nobel Prize winner, shot in Canada, Brazil, and Japan, with an international cast. The director is a Brazilian, known for his searing, politically astute films City of God and The Constant Gardener, both of which were marked by sophistication and depth. The screenwriter is a Canadian, whose work includes the brilliant and innovative Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould.

So, how on earth did this project, made by this team, turn into a film that feels like Hollywood in the most unfortunate ways? While Blindness has some visually beautiful moments and strong performances, this adaptation ultimately makes the unforgivable move of overlooking the deeper points of Saramago’s ethical philosophy.

The film begins with promise, but turns into something akin to Stephen King’s The Stand or The Dead Zone, a season of Lost, or, at best, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later—entertaining fare, if you like that sort of thing, but nothing with the moral provocation and intensity of José Saramago’s work. Saramago’s readers—who are, I’m sure, far fewer in number than fans of zombie flicks and virus movies—will expect a work like Luis Puenzo’s The Official Story, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s The Experiment, Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden, or Meirelles’ own City of God. They will be disappointed.

In Blindness, an inexplicable epidemic causes all of the people in an unnamed city to lose their sight. They are quarantined, and left without adequate food or any medical care. An ophthalmologist (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife (Julianne Moore) are the focal points of the narrative—the doctor’s wife hides the fact that she can still see in order to remain with her husband. In the quarantine, unsavory elements triumph. A man who declares himself King of one of the cells (Gabriel García Bernal) starts demanding everyone’s valuables in exchange for food rations, then declares that the people in the other cells must trade their women for food. Extreme violence and sexual exploitation erupt. The doctor’s wife breaks everyone out of the quarantine, which has become an Auschwitz-like prison, and takes a small group of survivors into her home. The outside world has fallen into ruin, with everyone filthy and dying on the streets.

Saramago’s book, written in an inimitable and sometimes maddening style, is a study of humanity’s sometimes terrible complexity. Stricken by the loss of control brought on by the shocking whiteness that they see instead of the familiar world, the characters warp and transform in surprising ways. Accepting his Nobel Prize, Saramago said, “Human dignity is insulted every day by the powerful of our world…the universal lie has replaced the plural truths…man stopped respecting himself when he lost the respect due to his fellow-creatures.” In this film adaptation, there are a few Saramago-esque moments, but overall, there are good people and bad people, like in Stephen King. Saramago’s Blindness is a parable about inhumanity and the way capitalism, patriarchy, and other distortions of the social order strip away human dignity. Blindness, the movie, does away with Saramago’s innovative language, and also loses track of the metaphor.

There’s something tedious and underwhelming about the filmmaker’s choices here. Yes, Julianne Moore is an exquisite actress, and her ubiquity is not her fault, but I couldn’t help thinking, “Julianne Moore, Julianne Moore, Julianne Moore being brave and going makeup-less again, Julianne Moore in another bravura crying scene.” (Plus, anyone who saw Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, also starring Moore, will feel some serious déjà vu as they sit through this even longer film.) I never for one second was drawn into the film enough to see her as the doctor’s wife, or to believe in the quarantine, or that the characters were blind. The film is way too eager to happily resolve things and focus on the goodness and love of the survivors in their happy group home. Saramago’s a fabulist, and the filmmakers are sensationalists. It’s not a good combination. I only hope it draws some unsuspecting zombie flick fans to the original novel, which will break them wide open and give them new vision. Elizabeth Bachner
October 3, 2008