Click Here to Read the Theatrical Review!

Blindness

Movie Grade:C-

DVD Features Grade: B-

Overall Grade: C

The film Blindness, directed by Fernando Meirelles, is an exercise in visceral stimulation aimed at the hearts of its viewers. The fact that it hits the mark adds to its power but hurts the narrative when you look at the film as a whole. The story is gripping, the actors do their jobs, and the audience is along for the ride. It's just that it's a ride I hated being a part of for a good hour and a half. The last act pays off everything that the characters suffer through to get there, but is it enough to redeem the entire film?

When The Aviator came out and everyone was talking about Martin Scorcese's supposed Oscar lock, I remembered an old game that an acting teacher once had me play. The group makes a circle, and the person in the center of the circle puts on a blindfold and gets pushed back and forth. They have to stay stiff as a board, and trust everyone else in the group to catch them before they fall. A filmmaker, by trade, is charged with telling a story. Within the parameters of a script agreed on by all the major creative talent, a director has the power to tell that story in any number of ways, emphasizing things, tastefully addressing sensitive subjects, and taking the audience on a journey. Every good film manipulates the audience on an emotional level, whether it's getting them to laugh even when they're sad, or getting them to cry even when they're happy, the audience is the willing participant in the grand vision of the director.

I knew that Scorcese hadn't nailed The Aviator because there were several points in the film, especially during DiCaprio's breakdown, where he let the audience fall too far before catching them, set them up too far in advance, or didn't deliver the payoff until it was long overdue. Blindness suffers greatly from this same problem and as with Fernando Meirelles' most recent film, City of God, he puts his audience through hell and never really makes it worth their while. With City of God the emotional turmoil and confusion was the only way to tell that particular story, and the choices felt natural and supported. There is no support structure behind the torture the viewer feels, and you wind up hating the film itself instead of the antagonists within it. This is a directorial choice, not a narrative problem, and had the film opened better, giving us a reason to care about any of the characters we meet, perhaps we'd be willing to go through that hell with them.

Visually the film is incredibly detailed and sophisticated in its aesthetic. The characters experience white blindness, perceiving everything as solid white light, and the color palette reflects

that lack of color. Everything is grey and white, with the dirt and grime almost black in the stark lighting. The sky is always cloudy, and the whole world is bathed with an eerie even light. You can smell the dirt and the sweat inside the quarantine compound, and the government operatives are just idiotic enough to feel realistic as federal employees. Julianne Moore carries the film, with ample help from a crowd of familiar faces, she is the reason to see this movie. What you should really ask yourself, is whether or not you'd be willing to spend two hours hanging on to her for dear life, and if so then you will be able to make it through the trials of the first two acts.

I have thus far neglected those of you who are fans of the novel the book is based on. Honestly, I haven't read it, but the fact that the original author is listed as one of the screenwriters makes me think that it's probably close enough to the source material to warrant the same title. The lack of locations is probably a fault of the structuring of the book, but being locked inside the institution for as long as the story is prevents it from reaching its full potential as an allegory for all mankind. We don't realize that the whole world has fallen to the illness until after we've stopped caring, making what could have been a powerful statement fall largely on deaf ears. The film has all the right ingredients to deliver it's message, but through mismanagement of it's emotional content it alienates the viewer and closes any open minds before it gets around to proving its point.

The Extras:

This is one of those classic cases where the extras outstrip the film they are covering. After watching the incredibly comprehensive behind the scenes documentary "Visions Of Blindness" you just might swear the movie succeeded in everything it was trying to do. One touching storyline involves acquiring the rights to the book itself, and the Nobel Prize winning author who, after seeing the movie for the first time, proclaimed to be experiencing the same feeling he had when finishing the original text. It is an extremely interesting watch, and the enthusiasm for the project is so strong you find yourself rooting for the creative team to a certain extent. The only other feature, deleted scenes, doesn't amount to much more than a collection of fragmented extensions of scenes already in the film and can't run over 5 or 6 minutes.

Movie Grade:C-

DVD Features Grade: B-

Overall Grade: C