Blindness

It happens without warning. One of your most important senses, the gift of sight, vanishes at a moment's notice.  But instead of having your vision shrouded in darkness, everything turns white as if you are "swimming in milk" as one individual describes it.  Patient zero appears to be a Japanese business man (Yusuke Iseya of Takeshi Miike's "Sukiyaki Western Django) who loses his sight at an intersection while driving.  Luckily a good samaritan (director and producer Don McKellar) offers to drive him home safely, but not before making off with the disabled man's car.  When the businessman's wife (Yoshino Kimura, also of Miike's western) takes him to visit their doctor (Mark Ruffalo), he can't give them an explanation and recommends more tests.  It isn't until the following morning that the doctor realizes the condition must be infectious as he alerts his wife (Julianne Moore) that he is now suffering the symptoms.

Slowly the condition begins to spread throughout the city and only when the doctor and his wife are escorted to a quarantine established by the CDC do they realize the magnitude of the situation.  A call girl already suffering from vision problems (Alice Braga), a one-eyed man (Danny Glover), the good samaritan turned thief as well as the businessman and his wife are also suffering from the "white blindness" and the number of patients is increasing.  Along with the doctor and his wife they have all been sequestered by the police in a quarantine established in a condemned mental hospital.  Though the condition is slowly spreading amongst the population only one member of their group appears to be unaffected and that is the doctor's wife.  Unsure of why she remains immune, the doctor and his wife decide to keep that fact a secret.  The patients assume she is just as blind as the rest of them, but are open to her assisting them in their survival.

Based on the celebrated novel by Jose Saramango, 'Blindness' is the latest feature from critically acclaimed director Fernando Meirelles.  A story of the disintegration and survival of the human race seems right up the alley of a director like Meirelles who has brought gritty realism to his past projects 'City of God' and 'The Constant Gardener' despite his often stylized directorial style.  Though the picture features another winning performance from Julianne Moore not even her strength as an actress can anchor the drama in reality after the film's powerful first act.

As new quarters of the infected become over-crowded the conditions go from bad to worse leading to a breakdown of humanity amongst the patients.  Despite her efforts to provide aid to her fellow tenants, Moore discovers that she can not save everyone and possibly not even her marriage.  As the voice of reason, Ruffalo tries to maintain a sense of order amongst the chaos as well as fight his growing resentment towards Moore who has evolved from his wife to his wet-nurse.  Soon the patients find themselves divided into groups or wards.  When one ward led by the self designated gun wielding "king of ward three" (Gael Garcia Bernal) takes control of the food supply, humanity finally breaks down to the point where the women of other wards must offer themselves to procure rations.  Though it may appear as powerful dramatic material on paper, under Meirelles direction the horrific situations seem manipulative and surprisingly laughable. Though the third act takes the picture in a direction filled with hope and perhaps freedom, the dramatic power is already lost and the story is turned into nothing more than a morality tale.

Along with Moore and Ruffalo, there are some noteworthy performances by Glover as the elder and voice of reason within their small group as well as Alice Braga as a prostitute who struggles to tame her sexual energy by becoming a foster mother to a small boy.  Meirelles often includes some rather realistically grim and depressing imagery to support the story, but he also makes the fatal mistake of including a stylized effect that bathes the screen in white light once too often.