Blindness

Easily one of the most depressing films I have ever seen. It's right up there with "The Road". Not to say it was bad or awful, just unimaginable is the best way to descibe it. It follows a major epidemic that makes 90% of the country go blind. That's not even the bad news. The all powerful government who always "knows best," are so scared that it may be contagious, that they quarantine anyone who is blind. The living quarters are hardly civil, and the movie does a great job of making the audience realize how bad these people have it. Their new disease is no deadlier than people who were born blind. When a Doctor (Ruffalo) contracts the "Blindness" he is immediately loaded up and his wife (Julianne Moore), who is not blind, says she is to be able to go with him. That is where the story picks up. These two characters are the main ones, and Though Moore can see, she doesn't let on to the other victims. When they arrive at their new home, an abandoned hospital, groups of people are segregated into groups of 25 or so in different quadrents of the hospital. Armed guards protect the place from towers outside, and food is delivered to the middle of the yard where the "prisoners" must retrieve and divide it among all the housemates. Even though they have done nothing wrong, except be unlucky, they are in fact prisoners in what soons becomes the worst prison on planet Earth. You see, there is no one inside to help the sightless, except The Doctor's Wife. What happens when things get bad enough and people get pushed to far? Riots, mayhem, rape, even Murder. It turns into one of the scariest places ever. I do not know who it is scarier for? The blind? Or the person who sees what is around her. I think Moore has it worse than the rest. She tends for her quadrent, takes people to the bathroom, cleans them up, and distributes food. The other inmates don't think anything of it. They just figure she has been there the longest. Any one caught to close to the wall or the facility exit are verbally warned to turn around, then if they don't , they are shot. Bodies begin to pile, smell increases, then the inmates become grave diggers. One day when food is running low and they have not received word from the outside, Moore investigates, only to find no more guards are present. The way the blindness is portrayed as a first person camera angle is absolutely perfect and terrifying. The director puts anyone who watches this film into that position, and it is scary. The movie is not that lengthy, but it seems like it will never end. That's what depression does to the human psyche. It makes you feel there is no end in sight, or is there? It really shows the power of mankind to survive. It's hard to imagine living blind after seeing your whole life. It's evolution and adaptation. Humans have adapted for thousands of years, and will continue to.

NBM rates Blindness - Awesome

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