Rated R

Directed Fernando Meirelles

Starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Don McKellar, Danny Glover, Alice Braga

Heidi’s Illustrious Review: 2.75

Word of Warning: Two people walked out of our theater. This movie has graphic scenes of violence. It features the worst in human nature – think adult version of “Lord of the Flies.”

This may be one of the most disturbing movies I’ve ever watched. First, I had numerous eye surgeries and blindness has always been a real possibility for me. Therefore, loss of sight is one of my greatest fears.

The movie is based on the book, “Blindness,” by Portuguese novelist and Nobel prize winner, Jose Saramago. My husband enjoys Saramago’s writing and at my husband urging, I sincerely tried to read “All the Names,” but Saramago’s style of run on sentences and lack of dialogue punctuation, drove me crazy and I eventually put the book down.

This story is set in an unnamed city where citizens begin to go blind. Instead of their vision going dark, they see bright white. The movie starts on a busy city street where a pile-up of traffic has developed. A drive in one of the cars has suddenly gone blind. The man’s wife takes him to see an eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo), but there is no explanation for the blindness. His eyes appear to be perfectly healthy.

Within 24 hours, the eye doctor has gone blind. The infectious blindness spreads and the government quickly rounds up all inflicted with the blindness and puts them in quarantine. The eye doctor’s wife (Julianne Moore) is mysteriously immune to the blindness, but she pretends to be blind in order to join her husband who has been put in a quarantined holding facility.

Director Fernando Meirelles also directed “City of God” (2003), a gritty film set in a violent section of Rio de Janeiro in the 1980’s. He also directed “The Constant Gardner” (2005). There are similarities in the filming of all three films, but “Blindness” taps into the emotional and imaginative part brain more than the others, and not in a good way.

Artistically, the movie is quite interesting; almost all color has been removed so that ”Blindness” almost appears to be in black and white. Time frames are distorted. The director also uses quiet in an effective way. For almost half the movie (or maybe over half the movie) there is no soundtrack to distract us from the unfolding plot. I started to long for music to pull me out of the despair being played out on the screen. At about that point, one of the quarantined characters (Danny Glover) pulls out a small radio he managed to smuggle in and plays it for the others and for the audience. It is a poignant moment in the movie, as it is a chance for the characters and audience to relax for a fleeting moment.

The acting is fine, though sometimes I thought the actors overly emphasis how a blind person would move, but otherwise, the main actors gave solid performances. None of the characters have names and perhaps this is a way to keep the audience somewhat removed from the onscreen misery and heightening fear. If this was the case, it didn’t work for me. This movie is emotionally disturbing and it is not suitable for everyone. As I mentioned above, it reminded me of an adult version of ”Lord of the Flies.” This is a movie about what happens when all humanity is stripped away and human beings are left in the raw.

If you are insanely curious or love Meirelles’ work, go and see it – but you’ve been forewarned.