In one scene from the latest film by Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Constant Gardender), the lead character (played wonderfully–did you expect anything else?–by Julianne Moore) descends into darkness in search of the most basic of human needs: food. The darkness is actually the basement storage of a grocery store. The power has been out in the city for weeks, and everyone has been forced to fend for themselves. Why? Because everyone is blind, that’s why. No one knows how it happened, but thousands (if not hundreds of thousands worldwide) have lost their sight and are wandering the streets, directionless and without hope. Except our unnamed heroine.
As she fumbles around for cans of soup, crackers, anything that she can get her hands on, we (as spectators) see nothing on the screen but blackness. It’s the first time, perhaps, she experiences the crippling fear that comes when one cannot see. The same goes for us. Throughout most of the film, Meirelles gives us a unique cinematic representation of what might be called sightless vision: a milky whiteness. But here, for about 45 seconds or more, we have nothing on the screen before us. Just a brilliant sound montage of shuffling feet, heavy breathing, boxes falling to the floor. In short, a very palpable panic. It’s absolutely riveting.
As is much of the rest of this excellent film.
But I need to address one particular sequence, which to me is not simply bothersome. It aims at the heights of film drama, but it’s perhaps the epitome of bad judgment. But a bit of set-up is in order (don’t worry, no spoilers): the government is absolutely freaked out about this epidemic. It doesn’t know how to respond or react except in fear (sound familiar?). The blind are rounded up and quarantined in what appears to be a deserted and gutted hospital. Each group of people is confined to separate wards and, gradually, the wards lose the spirit of cooperation and begin fighting with each other. We have, in short, a faction war between ward #1 (led by the heroine’s husband, a doctor, played admirably by Mark Ruffalo) and ward #3 (led by an antsy insurgent, played by Gael GarcÃa Bernal). Ward #3 has the upper hand, as it has seized control over the food supply chain. Initially, the people in ward #1 are forced to pay ward #3 (with cash, jewelry, anything) for their food. But soon they are drained of all their (useless, after all) resources and must pay ward #3 with something else: women.
The scene, described by Anthony Lane as the pit of the film’s descent, in which a single-file of women snakes its way through the corridors of the wards towards unimaginable suffering, brought to mind a scene from Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. The scene I have in mind is the one where women from the camp are marched, naked, towards what may very likely turn out to be a gas chamber. Both scenes are relentless in their depiction of depravity. And both scenes let us off the hook. I don’t mean that, in the latter, the gas chamber turns out to be showers. I mean that, in both cases, the musical score swells to a pitying, violin-drenched cry: “look what is happening! isn’t it so, so sad?” When Hollywood does depravity, it cues the required requiem with rubato. And it soothes us, we helpless watchers.
The big problem is not that we are let off the hook, but why we’re put on this hook in the first place. Who would write this? Why? I don’t mean to ask “why the cheap stunt?” as this would diminish the seriousness of the situation: women are allowing themselves to be raped for “a greater good” which can never be secured. The reasons for joining the queue are complex, to be sure. But the one reason that seems to be singled out is this: in a world where the blind lead the blind, everything is an object of exchange, and nothing is of value, nothing is of use, nothing has a price. Men excluded. This exercise in “lifeboat ethics” is played out in a minimally adequate way. Yes, I was left with a sickening lump in my stomach. But not because the film portrays the depths to which human depravity descends. Rather, because the film demonstrates the poverty (or, paradoxically, the distracting wealth) of our current cinema when it comes to depicting human depravity. Pasolini’s Salò jostles the spectator against its cold, sharp corners; exposes it in the unflattering light of the fascist offices; relentlessly reminds it of the film’s artless artifice. At its worst moments, Blindness runs for cover.
But some of you may have a smarter reading of this sequence, and its function within the film. I’m happy to be convinced, as this film is very good. I’m pleased I saw it, and I’m prepared to defend it. I can’t for the life of me figure out why Anthony Lane insists on playing the role of the plausible. Why, he asks, do the characters not have names? “I don’t believe it” he says. Nor does he believe that the doctor’s wife would keep secret the fact that she can see. In short, says Lane, the filmmakers forget to tell a story. I don’t think of Blindness as a story any more than I think of, say, The White Hotel as a story. But I’m not writing for The New Yorker.
The Federation of the Blind is protesting the film, but the film is not about blind people. The people in the film are not blind (this is made clear early in the film and reasserted, with the use of the visual motif I described above, throughout). The protest seems to rest upon a logic that reverses Lane’s criticism of the film. Rather than claiming Blindness allegorizes at the expense of storytelling, the Federation of the Blind literalizes Blindness and empties it of any symbolic meaning.
Decide for yourselves and report back here.
I was distracted by all the negative reviews. Lane’s did seem all-too-typically reductive; when he doesn’t like a film, he scrambles about for a narrative through-line to pin the offender comprehensively. But most reviewers seem put off, for its tendency to make the book’s pretty effective flirtation with the (merely) allegorical more emphatically MEANINGFULLY allegorical. That made me nervous, but your reading is so fine and clear, I have to see this, if only to engage you.
Has the Federation of the Blind seen the film? But, I kid The Federation….
I am resisting this film, because it sounds like it drips with significance. Is the film allegorical or is it a critique of the reductive tendency toward the allegorical? I don’t think I can take an allegorical film about a mysterious affliction and the social devolution that follows…when I look for social allegory I go to The Omega Man or something by John Carpenter where Adrienne Barbeau exposes her breasts.
From what I recall, there is little if any dialog between characters about the meaning of their affliction. It’s all situational–we need food, we need shelter, he needs medical attention, I need to be alone, etc.
i think i’ll break my movie-theater-avoidance spell and see this, too, john, just to engage with you.
the violins (i imagine) playing a spielbergian rubato requiem while the women line up to be raped are making me gag in advance. in the book, as i remember it, this sequence is not saccarinized at all: it seems, in fact, only the logical next step.
good joke michael. haha. i’m sorry.
Aren’t Barbeau’s breasts allegories? *Motorboat noises*
I’m sorry. This is a smart thread. I blame Michael for tempting me…
No rush, folks. I can wait for DVD.
i’m sure it’s slick, but i find it unlikely that meirelles may finally have made a good movie. especially since it stars julianne “look, i’m ACTING!” moore. but since i read all of john’s post, i now have to watch it. i blame him.
Julianne “look I’m ACTING” Moore? Really? How exactly do you define acting, Arnab? What is it you imagine actors do other than act? Could you name me three actors who aren’t acting when they are acting?
patrick swayze
meat loaf
the beverly hills chihuahua
okay, okay. i’m not suggesting that anyone isn’t acting. (i’m acting now, but enough of that.) actors like julianne moore and kevin spacey annoy my because their performances are so polished with the oil of good taste (like the “gravitas” of the star news anchor). every word is enunciated clearly, in every moment they’re visibly thinking. their performances flatter the audience–liking them confirms our own good taste. they’re the high art version of kelsey grammar.
Kelsey Grammar! *Motorboat noises*
I totally agree with Arnab about Kevin Spacey. Can’t steeeand ‘im (in Lina Lamont voice). But I was pleased with Julianne Moore’s performance, so I’m curious to read what Arnab thinks about it. What I read may prove once and for all whether or not Arnab is talking out of his ass (part of me thinks he isn’t because, as I said, I agree with him about Kevin Spacey) or if he has an infantile psychotic fixation on Julianne Moore (if he does, then I must needs confront mine own infantile psychotic fixation on Kevin Spacey). So see it, Arnab. It is slick, though. So maybe it’s not worth it.
Well, anyway, there are tits in it.
How’s that for infantile psychotic fixation?
Your turn reynolds.
Infantile psychotic fixation? *Motorboat noises*
Is it Moore herself or the movies she’s in? Are you just a reverse snob, Arnab? Fleeing from everything that smacks of “quality?” Is it because you reject the good and wallow in the sick, the dirty, the extreme, the nasty?
“it’s all a rich tapestry”.
maybe it’s the movies. she didn’t annoy me as much in the big lebowski, but there the joke seemed to be partly on the julianne moore persona.
and look, just because i bite the heads off chickens doesn’t mean i don’t appreciate quality. for one thing, they’re always organic, cage-free chickens raised without antibiotics or hormones. and for another, my pinkies are always parallel to the ground as i raise their heads to my jaws.
The comment thread on my post has gone horribly awry! Oh, who will save it?
I agree about Spacey’s film work (mostly). Though he was remarkably understated and believable in Recount which was on HBO recently. And you got to appreicate a guy who walks away from Hollywood to become the Artistic Director of the Old Vic in London. Maybe you don’t like stage actors. As for Moore, I worry this is an Arnab/Paul Thomas Anderson thing, but I’ll just mention two additional films: Short Cuts and Vanya on 42nd Street.
Old Vic? *Motorboat noises*
Michael, are you out there? I’ve seen some ugly video footage of a McCain rally in Bethlehem. Is it that bad?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fbpZXivv-M
John,
I was deep in my subterranean office on that day, ignorant even of the fact that McCain/Palin were visiting the area. I imagine that this kind of stupid fringe exists anywhere, unfortunately. McCain is a shameless opportunist–apparently he’ll pander to anyone.
a newsflash to inform the very patient john that i am halfway through blindness and am not particularly irritated by julianne moore.
did mike or gio ever watch this?