Welcome to the jungle

Blindness is directed by Fernando Meirelles, the brilliant eye behind cinematic greats The Constant Gardener and City of God. Starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal, the film tells the story of a hypothetical situation wherein an epidemic of blindness sweeps the nation, and only one woman [Julianne Moore] can see. The film presents a frightening vision of what the world would be like if everyone couldn’t see, and it basically promotes the notion of man being reduced to keeping afloat via survival instincts. It was a very scary and disturbing picture of what it would be like in a world of panic and disorder.

It would be a gross understatement to simply say that the film was intense. It was intense, all right, but it was also very graphic without actually being graphic, if that makes any sense. There were some very disturbing situations and scenarios that completely blew my mind and they disturbed me to a point where, after I watched the movie, I was actually replaying them over and over in my head, unable to drown them out. The movie was violent, without being slasher-flick-y, and it was like playing a game of Worst Case Scenario involving a world filled with people who were all blind.

The film is somewhat philosophical, and taps into the nature of man. It asks the question, is man born good or evil? If man loses sight (literally), would we be able to preserve our great and civilized societies, or revert back to the days of hunting and tracking as a means of survival? What lengths would a civilized human being go to in order to ensure survival? I don’t think there were some necessarily brilliant performances, apart from Julianne Moore’s of course. I think that the story speaks for itself, in terms of substance and gravity. It really makes you reflect on this civilization and it’s a scary thought to reflect on.

What would happen if you were the only person in the entire world who could see? Well, the film answers that question in more ways than one. Julianne Moore’s character is married to an eye doctor who acquires the blindness disease from a patient, who acquired it from someone else, etc. When everyone starts going blind, Moore’s character decides to feign blindness (even though she can see perfectly) to be able to accompany her husband into what is some sort of government-run quarantine facility, replete with military guards, food rationing and absolutely no maintenance or care whatsoever. Basically, in this worst case scenario, instead of the government helping its citizens get better and trying to determine the cause of the blindness, they end up taking the shortcut and throwing these infected ones into a quarantine facility, hoping that the blindness will be contained there. Unfortunately, the blindness spreads quickly and soon the entire country, if not the world, is blind.

Moore’s character starts off taking care of everyone in that facility. Since she is the only one who can see, she has to make sure they are able to get to the bathrooms to relieve themselves and take baths, she helps them get food, and helps them get from point A to point B. It’s a crapload of hard work and it’s scary to think of yourself in her position. Eventually people start giving up on stuff like going to the bathrooms and just start urinating and defecating everywhere, and since the government doesn’t send anyone to clean up because they fear that they will get infected too, the place literally becomes a shithole overnight.

Overall, the film definitely presented a disturbing scenario. It is essentially a hypothetical story of a world where everyone is blind, save one person. The audience is looking through the eyes of that one person who can see, and what the audience sees is so atrocious and so unbelievably disturbing that you would probably prefer not to see anything at all. It’s a thought-provoking film that will leave you wondering, is that really the dystopian reality of what would happen if everyone was blind?