BLINDNESS

Canada/Brazil/Japan, 2008, 118 minutes, Colour.
Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal, Alyce Brager, Yusuke Iseya, Yoshino Kimura, Don Mc Kellar, Maury Chaykin.
Directed by Fernando Merelles.

A fine but very uncomfortable film to watch, disturbing. Based on a novel by Nobel laureate Jose Saramago, Blindness has an urban apocalyptic plot that has been popular at the box-office in recent years, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, The Day After Tomorrow, Doomsday, Cloverfield and the predilection for Zombies. These have incorporated blockbuster elements and/or horror. There are moments for reflection but then the action continues.

Blindness is a film for reflection. With its blindness (both real and symbolic) coming upon victims suddenly and its being contagious, it invites its audience to identify with the characters and their traumatic experiences, visualising how difficult it is for sightless people to deal with practical and ordinary things unless they are familiar or they receive help, let alone an epidemic, isolation and danger. As Saramango says, ‘People who can see, but don’t see.’ What would we do in these circumstances?

This becomes more philosophically and ethically demanding as the plot continues. How can a growing group of suddenly blinded people, herded together in a rundown institution and virtually left to themselves, manage? The strengths and weaknesses of basic human nature are revealed. Calm or volatile temperaments make a difference. Will people be generous to one another when food is rationed, when hygiene, both washing and sewerage, are almost impossible? Will the group become cohesive? As more divisions are made and numbers increase, will conflict break out? And, what if a jumped up demagogue with a gun takes over, demanding obedience, robbing people for provisions and, most powerfully, manipulating the hungry so that the groups give up their women to his mini-empire?

And what of society which is motivated by fear and then terror? And guards ill-equipped to manage situations like this and trigger-happy? At first we see a government minister making statements but this line of plot disappears from the film just as it disappears from the life of the blind. And, should they get out, what kind of blind world will they find, a wrecked world and the blind rummaging in the wreckage?

All these issues and more are present in Don Mc Keller’s screen adaption (and he plays a particularly obnoxious character who steals the first blind victim’s car while offering to drive him home). They are given a somewhat ponderous explicitation by Danny Glover’s solemn and rhetorical voiceover, elaborating the questions and explaining some of the behaviour for those who have not picked it up by watching.

This is Fernando Mireilles’ film. After the Rio urban upheaval of his City of God, then the exploitation of medical experimentation in Africa in The Constant Gardener, Mireilles stays with his theme of society in disarray – and the challenge for some humane, even if fallible and slow, leadership to emerge. In Blindness, we are introduced to an eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo) but it is his ordinary wife who does not go blind but who is the backbone of this abandoned society. She is played by Julianne Moore, unmade up and looking haggard, who gives the film great strength. Her group could not have survived without her. But, what is the meaning (real and symbolic) of a Godlike (?) person who can see and direct the lives of those in need around her?

There are some religious implications in the screenplay. Julianne Moore says that the condition’s technical name sounds like agnosticism… Some of the peaceful survivors take refuge in a church where the statues of the saints and of Jesus on the cross are blindfolded… And, in the final moments, we are unsettled again and wonder whether this Christlike woman has to take the similarity as far as it will go.

1.The impact, adaptation of a Nobel Laureate’s novel? The apocalyptic genre? Serious rather than sensational? The dramatic implications of white blindness? Blindness as an image?

2.The international co-production, the use of different cities, especially in Latin America? The ordinariness at the opening, the streets, the later interiors of the institution, the aftermath in the empty cities? The musical score, the moods, the often jaunty touch?

3.The credits, the changing traffic lights, the heavy traffic, the cars, audiences identifying with the situation?

4.The audiences observing what was going on, sharing the subjective blindness of the victims, yet, with the doctor’s wife, able to observe what was going on? The audiences identifying with the characters, situations, what if …? Their treatment, their reactions to treatment, emotional reactions, philosophical reflections about human nature, moral and ethical issues and decisions?

5.The moral perspectives, for each individual, to be self-centred, to be empathetic, to be sympathetic, to be generous? Attitudes towards the group? Collaboration? Leadership? The deterioration of the situation? Images of society and collapse? The government, the minister, the initial comments, the treatment of the blind? The lack of care, care-less? The guards, the fear of infection, their general fear, trigger-happy, shooting the victim, authorities abandoning the group?

6.How did this situation resemble contemporary society, fear, neglect of those in need?

7.The literary adaptation, the man with the black patch and his voice-over, as a character, his descriptions, his rhetorical questions? How necessary, how explicit? Were the audiences asking these questions and observing what was going on?

8.The Japanese man in the car, suddenly going blind, the angry drivers honking, his bewilderment in the street, the Good Samaritan helping, then stealing the car, abandoning the man in the middle of the street, his helplessness, getting home, his wife, her reaction, the phone to the doctor’s, taking the taxi, the receptionist, the doctor and the treatment, the puzzle? All these people becoming infected?

9.At home, the doctor and his wife, her cooking, his chatting, their eating, the puzzle, the wife’s reflection about the disease and agnosticism? His studying the books? Waking blind, having to cope, the various victims being rounded up, the ambulance, the men and their protective suits? The wife deciding to go in the ambulance?

10.The girl with the glasses, at the doctor, the drops? At the bar, her going upstairs, her client, going blind, her panic in the corridor? The bartender going blind?

11.The young boy, the drops in his eyes, blind, missing his mother, alone?

12.The man with the black patch, sitting, kindly and observing? Unobtrusive with the group?

13.The institution, its location, squalid, isolated, the dormitories, the lack of any facilities, the doctor and his trying to exercise leadership, the reactions against him, the Good Samaritan and his attitudes, not taking orders, his reaction, with the young girl, her kicking him, his wound, having to deal with it, the treatment, his later trying to escape, his being shot? The group growing and having to cope?

14.The blind people and their having to manage, not managing, the visuals, enabling audiences to understand, the whiteness, their stumbling, trying to find things? Clues, voices, movement?

15.The portrait of the doctor’s wife, in herself, ordinary, at home, chatting, cooking, loving her husband, wanting to help, going with him? Her not going blind – why? A God-like figure, helping, cleaning, washing? Exhausted? Her being ordinary, limited? Her husband, his not coping, his feeling harassed, thinking she was his mother or a nurse, the sexual encounter with the young girl, her kindliness with the girl?

16.The issue of agnosticism, religious themes, the later episode in the church, the blindfolded figures, Jesus blindfold on the cross?

17.The other groups, entering, helping each other, the lost man being shot, the various rules?

18.Evil among the group: the Good Samaritan and his turning against authority, trying to escape? The real blind man and his stick? The bartender, his work in the bar, his ignorance, the demagogue, having the gun, his rabble-rousing speeches, his not having genuine ideas, the decision to steal from all the people, the blind man counting the money and the gold, the sexual demands, the doctor’s wife and her hostility?

19.The women, the discussion about going, their decision not to, the secretary volunteering, the others following, the doctor’s wife? The Japanese woman disobeying her husband? The doctor and his being upset? Going in the line, led by the doctor’s wife, the graphic experience, the audience seeing it, the women not, the dead woman, their bringing her back?

20.The next night, the callous blind man and his remarks to the doctor’s wife, hearing about the dead woman, the doctor’s wife and her decision – why so long in coming to it, not realising her potential? Taking the scissors? Killing the bartender? The consequent mayhem, the shooting?

21.An atmosphere of war, setting up the barricades, lighting the fire? Discovering that the guards had gone?

22.The details of life in the institution, washing, eating, cleaning, the scissors? The doctor’s wife and her leadership? The burying of the dead? The overall effect?

23.Getting out, the nature of freedom, the abandoned city, the dogs, feeding on the bodies, the various groups of blind people, the children robbing the adults, finding shelter? The rain and its cleansing, providing drinking water? The supermarket, the fights, the doctor’s wife and her discovery of the food in the basement, bringing it out, her being attacked, her husband defending her? The decision for the group to go to the house? Finding peace, shelter, washing, the joy of the meal?

24.The Japanese man regaining his sight? The comments of the man with the black patch? The future?

25.The doctor’s wife losing her sight? The reason? Her leadership over? Her complete self-giving?

26.A vision of a world which had lost its vision?