Blindness 2008

     This film is based on a 1995 novel by Jose Saramago.  He won a Nobel Prize for literature in 1998.   A man causes a traffic tie-up in Toronto when he suddenly becomes blind while driving.  Another man helps him home and his wife takes him to a specialist.  The doctor doesn’t know what the think when the man’s eyes seem perfectly fine but he can see only white.  Most people who are blind see black instead of white.  Within a short amount of time, other people are becoming blind including the eye specialist and a young boy who was also a patient.  The first people affected are placed in an abandoned mental hospital to quarantine them.  Every day more and more people are going blind.  Food becomes scarce at the quarantine site and some in the group start taking control.  They prey upon the weak, hoard the food and ask for payment to receive the food.  Only the eye specialist knows that his wife is not blind and she helps everyone in the ward.

      There are many times when this is a tough movie to watch and you wonder how one sighted person remains sane surrounded by so many helpless people.  The one other person in the hospital able to cope with blindness is a man who was blind before everyone else became blind.  He knows how to use a cane to navigate the hallways.  There is a lot of cruelty between one ward and the other wards in this hospital.  They also aren't able to get medical supplies or assistance from those guarding them.  3* (This movie is OK)

121 min, Drama directed by Fernando Meirelles with Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael Garcia Bernal, Yusuke Iseya, Yoshino Kimura, Mitchell Nye, Danny Glover.

Note:  Imdb 6.6 out of 10, 43% critic 47% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 1 ½*.