directed by Fernando Meirelles
One of those good films that has such a strong message that you simply cannot ignore it. Although considering how humanity is presented in this story… most of you will probably do ignore it. Anyway let’s give it a try. At first I need to tell you that all the characters are nameless, so I will have to describe them to you. So we get a young Japanese man (Yusuke Iseya) who loses his sight while driving a car. Luckily, he doesn’t cause any accident and immediately gets help. Another man offers to drive him home. As you might be guessing, the guy steals the car later. Obviously, welcome to our reality. The blind Japanese goes to an ophthalmologist (Mark Ruffalo) together with his wife and finds out there’s nothing wrong with his eyes. Unfortunately, something IS wrong, because the next day his doctor loses sight as well. Soon they realise it must be some kind of disease, because everyone around them goes blind. The government decides to collect all the “infected” and separate them from others. The doctor’s wife (Julianne Moore) lies she also doesn’t see and ends up in the asylum with her partner. Soon more and more people join them without any support from the outside world. The blind need to learn to cooperate, which isn’t that easy, especially when they are running low on supplies. Imagine if something similar happened in real. Suddenly everybody goes blind and a huge mess begins. People panic, fight with each other and lose their minds. However, at some point they need to accept it and learn to deal with it. I’ve read some people comparing the film (and the book) to the story about St. Paul in the Bible. Shortly speaking, he was against God and one day lost his sight. During the next days, he converted. So it’s the same what happened to the characters in the film. They went blind as a punishment for their actions as humans. To find out whether they became better people, you need to watch it. Not only it’s a well made film, but you may reflect on yourself after that. What’s interesting is that the community of actual blind people was protesting against this film because, according to them, it presents the blind as uncivilised barbarians. Personally, I think the other way. It presents how the actual blind are skilled and brave in the world where everybody sees. Because other people wouldn’t manage without their sight. So huge respect from my side.
My rating: 7/10
S.
I have nothing to watch 