Blindness is a dramatic thriller film adaptation of the 1995 novel of the same name by José Saramago.
The film opens with a man in his car on a busy motorway who all of a sudden loses his sight. What begins with the condition of one man seeking help with a sight problem, gradually becomes an epidemic where all those that come into contact with someone with the condition also get infected and loses their sight. The infected are transferred to a secure location which gradually becomes overwhelmingly populated and as you can imagine, things do not end happily with rationing of food becoming a problem and one ward deciding they should have more food than another. There are some shocking images present within this focal point of the film.
One ward holds those that had the first cases of the blindness and with the help of the wife of an ophthalmologist who pretends to be blind to stay with her husband, gradually work together to battle the difficulties and struggles they face. Being the only sighted person in the location she cares for, cleans up after and looks out for others in her surroundings, which with everyone urinating and making a complete mess puts a real strain on her relationship with her husband. Julianne Moore must have had such determination and strength to take on this character. We are left with a few questions though regarding her character. The most significant being why was she never infected with the condition?
The way the film is presented is very much like a two part TV series. It looks in detail at all smaller points rather than just glassing over the non-significant areas like most feature films do to get to the more interesting and focal points. The dinner scene towards the end and the fight for food or bathing for example are looked at in great detail when they could have easily be glanced over or missed out completely and would have no lesser impact. Blindness also focuses more on the relationship inside the holding cells than finding a cure at what caused thousands of people to go blind in the beginning. It focuses on dealing with the problems and struggles created by going blind rather than dealing with finding a solution before it happens. We rarely see anyone attempting to create a cure or even find out what caused it in the beginning.
The only real difficulty I had regarding Blindness was its lack of timescale. Whether all the events take place within a week or two or a few months is unclear and I feel I would have had more appreciation for the film if this information had been unveiled. Other than that Blindness was very insightful and made me realise two things; one, people would do anything to survive and two, you can adapt to any situation that comes your way.
Michelle Moore