DVD Review: ‘Blindness’ With Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo Should Not Be Widely Seen

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HollywoodChicago.com DVD Rating: 2.5/5.0
DVD Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Blindness” is one of the bleakest cinematic experiences of the last few years, shocking, violent, dirty, headache-inducing proof that what works on the page doesn’t always on the big or small screen and that even the most talented actors and director can sometimes stumble.

Before we go anywhere, please don’t let the critical response to “Blindness,” Fernando Mereilles’ adaptation of Jose Saramago’s incredible book affect your opinion of one of the more interesting authors of the last half-century. Saramago’s “The Stone Raft,” “All the Names,” and “The Cave” are must-reads.

“Blindness” opens with a man behind the wheel who suddenly sees nothing but a sea of white. Another man offers to help take him home and, of course, steals his car. The first man goes to see an eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo), who wakes up the next morning with the same visual disability.

Blindness
Blindness
Photo credit: Miramax

Eventually, it becomes clear that the white sickness has spread around the world. But there’s one woman - the doctor’s wife (Julianne Moore) - who seems immune to the problem. Instead of going forward and helping the government find a cure, she enters quarantine with her husband and the rest of the blindness victims.

Behind the walls of quarantine, a society develops and, of course, crumbles. Left behind by a government too scared of going blind themselves to help them, the ill fight for food, control, and even firepower. With almost no sign of hope and nothing positive to say about human nature, “Blindness” is a tough 121 minutes - loud, bleak, and filled with desperate characters who feel more like symbols than real people.

There are powerful performances in “Blindness” as talented actors like Moore and Ruffalo do their best to bring some three-dimensionality to their characters, but I think Mereilles, who so brilliantly helmed “City of God” and “The Constant Gardener,” was the wrong choice for this material.

He is a vibrant visual artist and I think the social allegory of “Blindness” would have worked better with almost no visual flair. With its one setting, it’s nearly a stage play and Mereilles was not the right choice for the material. You can feel him wanting to turn “Blindness” into more of a thriller, like he so expertly did with “Gardener” and it makes for an unusual film, a disjointed one that doesn’t maintain a tone or style.

What “Blindness” proves is that storytelling devices work differently in literature than in cinema. Saramago has always been a writer who uses overt symbolism and metaphor in his fiction, but what comes across as fascinating and intellectual on the page feels overdone and manipulative on the big screen.

The blatant symbols and heavy-handed metaphors of “Blindness” are what ultimately sink the film, but it’s not as worthless an experience as the early reviews from Cannes made it out to be. There are good performances, fascinating ideas, and, even if he’s not the right fit for the material, Mereilles is still a great director.

Some bad films make you think less of or even ruin an actor or director’s career. That’s not the case with “Blindness”. Saramago, Moore, Ruffalo, and Mereilles are all still great creative voices. This is merely a misstep.

The DVD from Miramax (the studio chose to not release the film on Blu-Ray) is pretty good. The video transfer, watched upconverted on a Blu-Ray player, is crystal clear. A lot of “Blindness” takes place in darkly lit scenes and there’s never any difficulty making out any of the action. The audio is presented in 5.1 Surround Sound and is similarly just above average.

“Blindness” includes two special features - deleted scenes and “A Vision of Blindness,” a making-of documentary on the film. The doc is nearly an hour and covers every aspect of production. It’s better than average.

‘Blindness’ is released by Miramax Home Entertainment and stars Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Alice Braga. It was written by Don McKellar and directed by Fernando Mereilles. It was released on February 10th, 2009.

HollywoodChicago.com content director Brian Tallerico

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

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