Blindness

A few successfully rendered psychologically tense scenes and an impressive post-apocalyptic voyage in the last third, versus idiotic behavior of the characters that destroyed all the potential of the interesting subject matter. The film so much doesn’t want to make a “Hollywood heroine” out of the main character that it makes an idiot out of the viewer instead. I am talking of the events in the quarantine that didn’t have to happen at all under the circumstances. Even the concept of quarantine at the beginning of the epidemic was unrealistic and hard to believe. The government isolating a group of people who have lost their sight for unexplained reasons in such a brutal manner as if they were dangerous zombies and firing at them with machine guns when they step slightly out of a crowd while walking across the corridor surrounded by five-meter-tall concrete walls? And the bizarre, in places absolutely inappropriate soundtrack (dementedly comical music in scenes that are supposed to be chilling) certainly does not help. I’m more of an emotional viewer rather than a nitpicker obsessed with logical inconsistencies, but this was too much. (11/25/2012)

In the hands of Fernando Meirelles, a smart script brimming with ideas becomes a captivating and very powerful psychological drama that will delight many viewers. And maybe there will be just as many people unable to think beyond the delicately tapped motifs, the resolution of which is left outside the film (otherwise it would be much longer) – and they will be guided to the third section, where they might feel well… Personally, I think Blindness is a far more interesting film that the celebrated City of God. (12/23/2008)

If there is anything I hate from the bottom of my soul, then it’s these hollow "Shyamalan" mysterious too-art almost allegories, which are, at their cores, built a) on stupid psychology, b) a tense directing style, which may make one drunk for a while through expressiveness, but they then only kill through unconceptual changes of perspectives and filters, c) on the poser emphasis of the overlap to general metaphysical categories. As long as it looked like a (flimsy) psychological thriller, I was willing to accept it, as soon as it went into a "spiritual" mode, it turned into a repulsive poser film without content. Society in chaos? No, movie speech in spasm. Instead of relief and a flurry of human heat, for the last twenty minutes I felt an urge to see those rotten blind zombies (because they're not characters) die. In fact, Blindness is as banal (if not more banal) as Hollywood disaster movies in which a family is united by disaster. But at least there you can enjoy it. (10/14/2012)

I have long dreamed of someone making an animated film for adults that would play intelligently with a genre, and when I saw Rango in that form, I was quite disappointed. When I saw Outbreak back in the day, I thought this was typical Hollywood stuff, and how nice it would be if someone tried to make it more realistic, like a cruel psychological drama. So I waited and got Blindness, and I was duly punished for my dreams because while I approve of the direction of Blindness, its final form is unfortunately awkward. The film is scattered in terms of the screenplay, essentially wanting to be something like Children of Men, but it lacks Cuaron's brilliant direction above all. While Meirelles does make an effort to depict a city struck by an apocalypse, the atmosphere is still somehow missing, and the film can be considered a unique example of how not to work with characters. I considered giving it three stars, but in this case, it would only be for the effort and subject matter. Overall impression: 45%. It's a shame that when someone actually makes a film like this, it turns out so uninteresting and uninspiring. (03/25/2011)

The merits of the chilling post-apocalyptic atmosphere and the setting are not outweighed by the fatal blunders in the script, the massive lapses in logic and the absurd behaviour of the main characters, or rather the main character, who is the only one without a visual impairment. Similarly implausible is the socio-political aspect, the depiction of the soldiers' approach to the quarantine, and the origin of the disease, which goes unexplained. If this is supposed to be a subliminal social/relationship satire about realising the importance of family togetherness in difficult situations, it has grossly failed. If it is supposed to be a classic mystery-thriller with a hint of apocalypse, it failed too. (09/16/2017)