Monday, November 3, 2008

Blindness


This review will be brief; however, I do plan to expand on it at a later time. On to the film!

It should first be noted that I have a slight bias towards the director of this film, Fernando Meirelles, as he is responsible for both City of God and The Constant Gardener, but with this stated, Blindness is a fantastic film. Altohugh not related to my thoughts on the film, I must say the reviews it recieved are rather shocking, and feel that part of the reason for the spite comes from misconseptions about the film, and this will be brought about shortly.

Although marketed as simply another sci-fi thriller, the film is really a meditation on the nature of man. This is where the problem lies. The main critique on the film appears to be that the film's subject matter is simply to dark, which is difficult to argue with. In fact, if one were to borrow from Thomas Hobbes, the film would basically describe the basic life of man to be "nasty, brutish, and short." While this is all true, one must understand that this is an adaptation of a novel of the same title, by
Jose Saramago, and this film only scratches the surface of what is depicted in the book. This is no complaint, as few would be willing to subject themselves to viewing a film like that.

However, as dark as this tunnel is, the film offers the same glimmer of hope, thus asserting the goodness of man. While natural instinct may make us animalistic, we have the ability to pursevere of these raw sates and keep our humanity. This is the true meaning of the film.

As a quick note, the acting and technical aspects of the film were rather well done, although not nearly as inspired by previous efforts by the directer and crew.

B+/A-

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