'Blindness' leaves too many questions unanswered

By Chris Kaltenbach | Baltimore Sun reporter

October 3, 2008

Director Fernando Meirelles doubtless had any number of good intentions in adapting Jose Saramago's 1995 novel of a world gone suddenly, inexplicably blind. Too bad they're all lost in this belabored allegory that fails to even set up any rules, much less abide by them.

For reasons never explained, a sudden scourge of blindness afflicts a nameless North American city. Alone in the entire world, apparently, only one person retains her sight -- an optometrist's wife ( Julianne Moore), who nevertheless pretends to be blind, so she can stay by her husband's side when he's quarantined.

Things devolve quickly, as man's basic inhumanity to man inexorably takes over (think a visually challenged Lord of the Flies), and before long everyone's being hateful to everyone else -- none more so than Gael Garcia Bernal's street thug, who quickly declares himself king of the ward and starts demanding money, sex and whatever else he desires in exchange for food.

Cinematographer Cesar Charlone shoots everything in glaring overexposure, making the film intentionally hard on the eyes. That's understandable, given the empathy Meirelles is clearly going for. What isn't understandable are the myriad unanswered questions the film never even tries to grapple with: Why is Moore's character the only one able to see? Why doesn't she use her sight to better protect the others? How does Bernal's character seize power so easily? You get the film's message, that mankind does not react well when challenged by unpleasantness it can't explain away, within the first 15 minutes -- leaving more than 100 minutes to ponderously belabor the point.