Blindness

Industrial lights reflect intermittently off the windshield of a speeding automobile as “Blindness,” the new film by acclaimed Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles, opens with stunning visuals. Meirelles, whose past credits include the equally arresting “City of God,” ingeniously captures the sensation of being infected by the white blindness that mysteriously afflicts the film’s urban population. Shot in natural, almost milky tones, “Blindness” enjoys a visually striking and promising start—but this promise is only ephemeral.

As the film progresses, the initially creative cinematography becomes tacky and ostentatious while the excitement of the storyline wanes exponentially. Ultimately, “Blindness,” based on Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago’s novel by the same name, falters heavily with its messy screenplay and dull performances.

In “Blindness,” a mysterious plague of contagious blindness creates chaos in an unnamed city. Those first afflicted by the disease are quarantined in a grimy and unstaffed medical facility. Julianne Moore plays the wife of an eye doctor infected by the plague, and she bravely joins her husband in the quarantine building. Unnamed like the rest of the cast, the eye doctor’s wife is the only character in the movie who can see—in both a physical and moral sense—and as a result becomes the movie’s heroine. But as both the physical and social conditions of the building quickly deteriorate, anarchy ensues, and the criminals who take control force the others to commit sickening acts of physical and sexual violence for food.

Throughout the second half of the film, set primarily in the disgusting medical facilities, an ambivalent tone that alternates between seriousness and playfulness prevails, contributing greatly to the film’s diminishing power. At one point, after the government has completely abandoned the blind, a group of the infected sit listening to the news around a shabby radio that belongs to a mysterious man with an eye patch, played by Danny Glover. After they receive the depressing news that the city around them is crumbling as the plague continues to spread, bongos and flutes from a lighthearted Caribbean tune invade the decrepit room. At this point, the last (or maybe first) thing you’d expect is the blind to break out singing as if in a seeing-impaired musical. But something similar, and potentially worse, happens: they all begin to whistle along.

This ironically cheerful moment is abruptly severed, as the various wards form mock governments. The self-proclaimed “King of the Third Ward,” played by Gael Garcia Bernal, claims that he will only distribute food in exchange for women. In ridiculously cheesy “I am Spartacus!” fashion, the women of the ward all decide to prostitute themselves to save themselves from starvation. As a bright and jolly tune plays while the blind sex-fest occurs, the audience is struck more by the hilarity of the situation than the actual tragedy. Lines like “May I suck on your nipples?” only function to make things worse. Only Garcia Bernal, with his wicked humor and lack of self-seriousness, manages to strike a successful balance between the absurdity and direness of the situation—the film does not.

With a stronger screenplay from writer Don Kellar, “Blindness” could have been a tour-de-force about society’s breakdown during dangerous epidemics. With such a respected cast and director, and a screenplay adapted from a novel by a widely acclaimed author, the movie’s failure is even more surprising. Ultimately, “Blindness” becomes a laughable attempt at translating greatness on the page to greatness on the screen.

—Staff writer Andres A. Arguello can be reached at arguello@fas.harvard.edu.