In Fernando Meirelles' Blindness, a sudden outbreak of an unknown virus turns almost the entire human race blind. The infected are interned in camps, with total strangers forced to cohabit as the government and the precious few left with vision endeavour to find a cure. It's bleak stuff already, but surely Meirelles, adapting Jose Saramago's allegorical novel of the same name, could use this fantastical central conceit to tell a tale of compassion and togetherness overcoming our innate fragility as a species? Nah. What happens when the whole world turns blind, according to Meirelles and Saramago, is instant pandemonium. Opportunistic scumbags rape and murder their way around the trash and faeces-encrusted camp at the heart of Blindness, those shut inside left to fend for themselves by an unsympathetic government. Society, says Blindness, is at its core morally bankrupt, and it only takes removal of the illusion of law and order for the debased and depraved to swiftly find themselves in a position to thrive. This idea of things is probably why audiences mostly stayed home (to the tune of only $19 million worldwide), Blindness being a sci-fi so heartless that it makes even the loveable Mark Ruffalo into an emotionally cold husband that sleeps with the nearest woman as soon as his wife's out the room. Like this article? Got any to add? Let us know in the comments section below.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
