“Gripping, provocative and startling. A wonderful translation from novel to film!”
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TITLE: BLINDNESS
DURATION: 121 minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Color, Anamorphic Widescreen (1:85:1). Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, English and Spanish Subtitles.
RATED: R (for Violence including sexual assaults, language and sexuality/nudity)
COMPANY: Miramax Films
Release Date: February 10, 2009
Directed by Fernando Meirelles
Based on an original novel by Jose Saramago
Screenplay by Don McKellar
Produced by Niv Fichman, Andrea Barata Ribeiro, Sonoko Sakai
Co-Producers: Bel Berlinck, Sari Friedland
Executive Producers: Gail Egan, Simon Channing Williams, Tom Yoda, Akira Ishii Victor Loewy
Casting by Susie Figgs and Deirore Bowen
Original Score by Marco Antonio Gumaraes/Uakti
Editor: Daniel Rezende
Costume Designer: Rene April
Production Designer: Tule Peake
Cinematography: Cesar Charlone, ABC
Starring:
Julianne Moore as Doctor’s Wife
Mark Ruffalo as Doctor
Alice Braga as Woman with the Dark Glasses
Yusuke Iseya – First Blind Man
Yoshino Kimura – First Blind Man’s Wife
Don McKellar – Thief
Jason Bermingham – Driver #1
Maury Chaykin – Accountant
Mitchell Ne – Boy
Eduardo Semerjian – Concerned Pedestrian #1
Danny Glover – Man with Black Eye Patch
Gael Garcia Bernal – Bartender/King of Ward Three
Joe Pingue – Taxi Driver
Susan Coyne – Receptionist
Fabiana Guglielmetti – Mother of the Boy
Sandra Oh – Minister of Health
Imagine that one day you lost your eye sight completely…
Imagine everyone in the world starting to lose their eye sight and all becoming blind.
That is the storyline of the film “BLINDNESS” directed by Fernando Mierelles (known for his work for the 2006 award winning film “The Constant Gardner”). What happens when everyone has gone blind except for one.
The film starts off with a man (first blind man, Yusuke Iseya) driving in a busy city and all of a sudden, he loses his eye sight. He gets the help of a guy (Driver #1, Jason Bermingham) who helps drive him home.  His wife (played by Yoshino Kimura) can’t believe what has happened, all that her husband knows is seeing a white blinding light and then losing his eyesight.
She takes him to the doctor (Mark Ruffalo) who is surprised because most cases of blindness, they see darkness and also their eyes have changed to indicate blindness. But yet, the eyes are fine. And it appears that this is happening to other people as well.
In fact, the next day, the doctor and even some of the people waiting at the doctor’s office, including the driver of the first blind man somehow all go blind. These people who gone blind are taken to an old prison area where they are to be quarantined. Accompanying the doctor to the quarantine area is his loving wife (played by Julianne Moore) as being a person who can see but pretends that she is blind in order to stay close to her husband.
At first, it was only a handful of them in the quarantine area but the numbers start to grow incredibly. In the outside world, things are so bad in the world that airplanes start crashing, cars start crashing. The cities become desolate and even the top people in the medical industry can’t figure out what is happening. But what the doctor’s wife sees the quarantine area become is inhospitable and disgusting. People are defecating anywhere they can, no one is cleaning the place. Food is low, trash is everywhere, people are unclean. It’s a disaster.
And with multiple wards continuing in the quarantine area, they are so down on food and there is no medical help and people start dying. They are forced to bury their own dead. But they try to get help from the outside world but they are treated inhumanely. In fact, if anyone tries to venture out of the quarantine area, they will be shot by armed guards.
All of a sudden, the King of Ward III (played by Gael Garcia Bernal) manages to take control of weapons, the food ratios but being as ruthless and cold man and the fact that he is being assisted by actual blind people who have adapted to the world, he has an edge. So, if anyone wants food, wards will have to offer any jewelry or major belongings. To make things worse, Ward III starts to up the ante and say that if anyone wants food, each ward will have to sacrifice their women.
For the doctor, being the collected man as he was, now being defenseless because he is blind starts to send him on to a different path and starts to push his wife away. As for his wife, being the one and only person who can see, she needs to make a decision to either play defenseless or take a stand and protect others in her ward before total chaos breaks out.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
Video is presented in (1:85:1) widescreen and was well done. Fernando Mierelles and Cesar Charlone were able to work together to recreate the disgusting, dark and creepy quarantine area perfectly but most of all, to showcase so many people all blind inside the quarantine area and the real world as they walk the freeways, rummage throughout the city, etc. Well done!
Audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. The film is primarily a dialogue-driven film and you can hear everyone clearly.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
There are two special features included on the DVD.
- “A Vision of Blindness” – Making of Blindness Documentary – This one hour featurette actually enhanced my appreciation for the film. A lot of the main talent to the extras had to undergo blindness training. At first using a blindness coach and wearing sleeping eye masks for hours and trying to manage themselves through areas and depending on others to get from one point to another. Also, to make sure that the experience was real during filming, the main characters had to wear special contact lenses which made them blind. Another interesting bit of information was how many countries this film was shot in. Many variety of locations in order to achieve realistic results and they succeeded. But the most difficult task for the crew was getting the OK from Jose Saramago (the original writer of the novel), a man who never gives out the rights to his films. But in this case, because the producers didn’t look like the Hollywood types, he gave them the OK. A very awesome featurette.
- Deleted Scenes – Deleted scenes with a written intro by the director. I can understand why they were cut out. In the film, you were lead to believe that everyone inside were people who were infected by the blindness but in the deleted scenes, a significant scene was that both those who were blind and those who came into contact with those infected were in quarantine. Another was more ruthlessness in the rape scenes and also other scenes which I was happy to see trimmed out of the film.
I enjoyed “BLINDNESS” and definitely was surprised after watching the special featurette of how far the director went to make sure everyone had blindness training and having to wear the special contact lenses. It definitely made the movie much more believable and also their utilization of locations to have a world that has gone astray because everyone has gone blind.  At first, I was wondering if they were constructive sets made in the back lot and a lot of CG but they really went all out in trying to find locations where to make this film happen.
“BLINDNESS” is one of those films that incorporated an all-star cast from talent worldwide. Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Danny Glover are well known names in the US. Yoshino Kimura and Yusuke Iseya are well-known in Japan. Alice Braga is well known in Brazil (and the US for her role in “I Am Legend”), Gael Garcia Bernal is known for his work in Mexico and Spain (also in the US for “Babel” and “Y Tu Mama Tambien”) but featuring so many talent from all over the world was a good idea.
Performances from each of the cast members were well done and overall, the storyline was gripping, provocative and startling. Of course, watching the film, you kind of think to yourself, how is it that everyone has gone blind except the doctor’s wife (Julianne Moore), at first I was wondering if her being able to see would be a cure but the film doesn’t go that direction. And the direction the storyline went, I was very satisfied with.  Overall, the film shows a side of humanity that eventually gets tested and pushed to a very dark side. Everyone become equals, there is no prejudice, there is no difference in who is rich and who is poor. When everyone is blind, everyone can either work as a group or be alone.  Eventually by the end of “BLINDNESS”, you see that there is hope.
I enjoyed the film but watching the DVD and watching the featurette “A Vision of Blindness” made me enjoy this film much, much more because you see how much was put into it, how much commitment from the various crews in different countries to the final moment when you see the reaction from Jose Saramago, the writer of the novel as he watched the film with director Fernando Meirelles and his reaction at the end.
“BLINDNESS” is a film worth watching and even moreso, watching it on DVD. Highly recommended!