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Monday, October 6, 2008
Reviewing while I’m away: Blindness
I’m typing this from Orlando, Florida where I am on vacation. Just because I’m on vacation, however, does not mean I take a vacation from movie-watching. I’m hoping to catch up with some new titles while down here, and I’ll fill them in as I go along.
Before I left, I caught up with one title:
Blindness: The new film from City of God/Constant Gardener director Fernando Meirelles has a reach that somewhat exceeds its grasp. It means to be an allegorical look at society gone haywire, when a mysterious sudden blindness afflicts most of the population. In its attempts to be self-consciously symbolic, it’s emotionally cold. Still, it has some very powerful moments thanks to a strong cast and imaginative visuals. GRADE: B
As for the protests swirling around the film, they are complete and utter bunk. The film is an indictment of inhumanity, not of the blind. The simple fact is, if a large chunk of our population became blind all of a sudden, we’d go berserk. Don’t believe me? Just look at how something relatively mild like the hurricane winds we felt a few weeks ago made us all crazy. By protesting the movie, blind advocacy groups only make themselves look thin-skinned and needlessly victimize those they aim to support. And I say this as a physically disabled man who has seen far too much misplaced indignation.
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