So today is a special treat, I am going to dissect my opinion of the Julianne Moore vehicle Blindness. Let me begin by saying
!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!
!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!
So if you really don't care about the ending or plot of this film read on, if however you do, please stop here. However I will point out that if you read on and listen to my words you will have every reason to avoid this movie, in the same way audiences did.
So Blindness is a adaptation of a book by the same name, if the problems I mention here are because I didn't read the book well, fuck along now. I think that film adaptations of books or other materials should be regarded as two independent entities, I shouldn't need the plot filled out by going and reading the book, the plot should be self evident. So please don't say something like "But you see such and such had this, in the book they very clear-" SHUT THE FUCK UP!
The film begins by showing you a little bit of the city, namely the roads therein, however we learn quite a bit within the first few minutes before the "BLINDNESS" sets in about the world we're supposed to give ourselves over to. Namely that the first victim speaks Mandarin, I think, didn't sound like Japanese, maybe he was Korean. Anyway, we see that the cars have long license plates with a handful of large numbers on them, suggesting a European city. We however then see the environment as being somewhat temperate, almost tropical in places. We see the citizenry, the people of this city are like a mural for multiculturalism, every race, color and linguistic barrier is melded into this city. This very clearly states one thing, the city is made up, it doesn't exist in any government or country we know, what is meant to bring to us is the idea that this city represents the whole planet. Well, I like when my movies try to depict civilization in a realistic manner. In effect when you use science fiction to convey something about society, you need civilization clearly delineated, it must be real. Otherwise what you get in this case is,
A) Unbelievable event: Ergo the Blindness, or the sudden end of fertility in Children of Men.
B) Made up society, not based on any existing model.
C) Critical view of human condition in what amounts to a completely unreal environment that humans wouldn't make.
It's like picking up all of humanity and placing them in a human ant farm, it's not a real depiction of society, so any actions people take in this made up world simply don't ring true because they're already in an unbelievable place.
The reason it seems so unbelievable is quickly revealed when the outbreak begins. Once people start going blind randomly hazmat teams show up and start taking people to a "Facility". Firstly it is the earliest stages of the outbreak that they do this, moreover the way they handle the outbreak at the facility is incredible.
The place looks like a run down third world mental institution. So we have gone from the first world to the third world in the same city. Moreover from earlier views of the city and culture therein it feels like a democratic society, with the usual urges to build over everything, or at the very least keep everything looking clean, so the very presence of this dilapidated abandoned prison/asylum is incongruous with the rest of the world we've seen.
Now we have seen that people in extreme situations, under orders can do inhumane things, but it takes time, a wilting and weathering of morals. In this movie it is zero to threatening to blow a mans head off in two days.
You see, Julianne Moore's husband has acquired the disease, and she opts to go with him to the facility when the hazmat teams arrive. She pretends to be blind so she can get in, the proceeds to become the mother protector of the whole place. Now, she seems completely non plussed at the outset of arriving in the facility. This is amazing because she's probably been involved in the society in which she lives for some time, so seeing this place should freak her out, the water is brown, everything is rusty or from the 30's, there's no food or medical kits. Moreover there are no teams of scientists, remotely interested in studying the people where the outbreak began. Instead we have a wall and guards terrified of the disease, which has yet to destroy society, it's simply really annoying right now. It would be the equivalent of people spontaneously breaking into song and being unable to stop, so the government locks them in an abandoned school then refuses to send researchers certain that soldiers can do the research through osmosis.
So we have gone from first world to the third world in the same city, we are ignoring the human rights issues with the treatment of early outbreak survivors (something a modern society would cling to for at least a month or two). Worse yet is the fact that in these early stages there aren't even hazmat teams there to try and cull some knowledge of the outbreak from the victims, the victims are behind locked doors, out of sight, milling around with almost no food. Seriously what the fuck? So what happens inside this place is supposed to be a realistic indictment of humanity, when we don't even see humanity presented as its own history has made it!
Anyway, after a few days buses arrive with more victims. This is where the movie really goes down hill. With the arrival of bus loads of people we see a sudden drop in quality of life inside the already miserable conditions of the asylum. Now we are dealing with a teeming city, full of people, hundreds of thousands if not millions, the asylum appears to be the go to facility, and I'm certain in the book that the place ends up with hundreds if not thousands of people getting dumped there. In our movie asylum we see the contrary, the buses drop off what amounts to maybe 60-70 people all together. Inside the asylum is split into wards, three in total, with 34 people to a ward. The first ward is Julianne Moore and her husbands ward, we all root for ward 1, good people. The second ward is pretty much unseen but we sense it's a lot like the first ward, because Julianne becomes a mother to the whole place. Huge fucking problems occur because of this, but I'll get to those later. The third ward is for people turned away from the first two wards. We meet ward 3 when Moore's husband goes to ask for help burying the dead (a common problem a month in), ward 3 says no dice. We see ward 3, we see its occupants, which number around 6 to 8 people. A rowdy fucker declares himself king of ward 3 and vows to not make his people work, there are cheers from the assembled 8 douchebags.
From this point on I was sorely disappointed in the film, even more than I was before. You see when the next shipment of food arrives ward 3 takes it and holds it hostage. The rowdy fucker pulls a gun he slipped past the quarantine and brandishes it at the 70 or so other people there (who are already getting close to starving). He is backed up by his team mates who are wielding lead pipes, big ones. Moore demands to know what ward 3 wants for the food. Well rowdy fucker suggests that ward 3 is now a supermarket, and the other wards need to pay for food.
Alright, so we have a building through of blind people, one group of blind people takes all the food and demands everyone else pay. Now you could make a case for everyone complying due to the fact they have no idea how many people are in ward 3, to try and force them to return the food would end in a number of deaths and potentially more soon to come. However Julianne Moore is not fucking blind! She knows that the other wards outnumber the third 4 to 1, moreover is the fact that being the only person with sight means she could theoretically do whatever she wanted to them at any time. Well, the movie feels differently, Moore needs to pretend to be unable to affect any changes at all, it's called acting. So people gather their possessions and hand them off in bags to the caretakers of ward 3, who then hands over cartons of food based on how they feel at the moment. Moore's husband notices that one of ward 3 douche crew is an actual blind person, not someone afflicted with the disease, but a from birth blind person. He is depicted as gifted with special superpowers.
Alright, so Moore decides that it is better to play ball with ward 3 than risk anyones life ending their dictatorship. Now from the get go you know that rowdy fucker is trouble, more than likely the kind of guy who would kill his own mother to get ahead, so her attitude that somehow appeasing him and not using her ability against him is incredible.
As an audience member my first reaction is "So once we've handed over our belongings, and you give us enough food for a single day, what happens next?" Moore doesn't think this far ahead, her mental process is a complete unknown to anyone born with a living soul.
So things get worse, rowdy fucker discovers the intercom system and starts making decrees. First decree, give us your women.
I really didn't expect the next thirty minutes of the movie to take place. Moore, knows there are 8 guys in ward 3, she has seen them, and everyone is blind. When they demand women for food her husband worries that trying to fight back against rowdy fucker will lead to a multi ward war. Moore's husband is clueless as to the numbers of people in ward 3, Moore on the other hand knows, she is completely capable of finding out if she doesn't as well.
So Blindness is a adaptation of a book by the same name, if the problems I mention here are because I didn't read the book well, fuck along now. I think that film adaptations of books or other materials should be regarded as two independent entities, I shouldn't need the plot filled out by going and reading the book, the plot should be self evident. So please don't say something like "But you see such and such had this, in the book they very clear-" SHUT THE FUCK UP!
The film begins by showing you a little bit of the city, namely the roads therein, however we learn quite a bit within the first few minutes before the "BLINDNESS" sets in about the world we're supposed to give ourselves over to. Namely that the first victim speaks Mandarin, I think, didn't sound like Japanese, maybe he was Korean. Anyway, we see that the cars have long license plates with a handful of large numbers on them, suggesting a European city. We however then see the environment as being somewhat temperate, almost tropical in places. We see the citizenry, the people of this city are like a mural for multiculturalism, every race, color and linguistic barrier is melded into this city. This very clearly states one thing, the city is made up, it doesn't exist in any government or country we know, what is meant to bring to us is the idea that this city represents the whole planet. Well, I like when my movies try to depict civilization in a realistic manner. In effect when you use science fiction to convey something about society, you need civilization clearly delineated, it must be real. Otherwise what you get in this case is,
A) Unbelievable event: Ergo the Blindness, or the sudden end of fertility in Children of Men.
B) Made up society, not based on any existing model.
C) Critical view of human condition in what amounts to a completely unreal environment that humans wouldn't make.
It's like picking up all of humanity and placing them in a human ant farm, it's not a real depiction of society, so any actions people take in this made up world simply don't ring true because they're already in an unbelievable place.
The reason it seems so unbelievable is quickly revealed when the outbreak begins. Once people start going blind randomly hazmat teams show up and start taking people to a "Facility". Firstly it is the earliest stages of the outbreak that they do this, moreover the way they handle the outbreak at the facility is incredible.
The place looks like a run down third world mental institution. So we have gone from the first world to the third world in the same city. Moreover from earlier views of the city and culture therein it feels like a democratic society, with the usual urges to build over everything, or at the very least keep everything looking clean, so the very presence of this dilapidated abandoned prison/asylum is incongruous with the rest of the world we've seen.
Now we have seen that people in extreme situations, under orders can do inhumane things, but it takes time, a wilting and weathering of morals. In this movie it is zero to threatening to blow a mans head off in two days.
You see, Julianne Moore's husband has acquired the disease, and she opts to go with him to the facility when the hazmat teams arrive. She pretends to be blind so she can get in, the proceeds to become the mother protector of the whole place. Now, she seems completely non plussed at the outset of arriving in the facility. This is amazing because she's probably been involved in the society in which she lives for some time, so seeing this place should freak her out, the water is brown, everything is rusty or from the 30's, there's no food or medical kits. Moreover there are no teams of scientists, remotely interested in studying the people where the outbreak began. Instead we have a wall and guards terrified of the disease, which has yet to destroy society, it's simply really annoying right now. It would be the equivalent of people spontaneously breaking into song and being unable to stop, so the government locks them in an abandoned school then refuses to send researchers certain that soldiers can do the research through osmosis.
So we have gone from first world to the third world in the same city, we are ignoring the human rights issues with the treatment of early outbreak survivors (something a modern society would cling to for at least a month or two). Worse yet is the fact that in these early stages there aren't even hazmat teams there to try and cull some knowledge of the outbreak from the victims, the victims are behind locked doors, out of sight, milling around with almost no food. Seriously what the fuck? So what happens inside this place is supposed to be a realistic indictment of humanity, when we don't even see humanity presented as its own history has made it!
Anyway, after a few days buses arrive with more victims. This is where the movie really goes down hill. With the arrival of bus loads of people we see a sudden drop in quality of life inside the already miserable conditions of the asylum. Now we are dealing with a teeming city, full of people, hundreds of thousands if not millions, the asylum appears to be the go to facility, and I'm certain in the book that the place ends up with hundreds if not thousands of people getting dumped there. In our movie asylum we see the contrary, the buses drop off what amounts to maybe 60-70 people all together. Inside the asylum is split into wards, three in total, with 34 people to a ward. The first ward is Julianne Moore and her husbands ward, we all root for ward 1, good people. The second ward is pretty much unseen but we sense it's a lot like the first ward, because Julianne becomes a mother to the whole place. Huge fucking problems occur because of this, but I'll get to those later. The third ward is for people turned away from the first two wards. We meet ward 3 when Moore's husband goes to ask for help burying the dead (a common problem a month in), ward 3 says no dice. We see ward 3, we see its occupants, which number around 6 to 8 people. A rowdy fucker declares himself king of ward 3 and vows to not make his people work, there are cheers from the assembled 8 douchebags.
From this point on I was sorely disappointed in the film, even more than I was before. You see when the next shipment of food arrives ward 3 takes it and holds it hostage. The rowdy fucker pulls a gun he slipped past the quarantine and brandishes it at the 70 or so other people there (who are already getting close to starving). He is backed up by his team mates who are wielding lead pipes, big ones. Moore demands to know what ward 3 wants for the food. Well rowdy fucker suggests that ward 3 is now a supermarket, and the other wards need to pay for food.
Alright, so we have a building through of blind people, one group of blind people takes all the food and demands everyone else pay. Now you could make a case for everyone complying due to the fact they have no idea how many people are in ward 3, to try and force them to return the food would end in a number of deaths and potentially more soon to come. However Julianne Moore is not fucking blind! She knows that the other wards outnumber the third 4 to 1, moreover is the fact that being the only person with sight means she could theoretically do whatever she wanted to them at any time. Well, the movie feels differently, Moore needs to pretend to be unable to affect any changes at all, it's called acting. So people gather their possessions and hand them off in bags to the caretakers of ward 3, who then hands over cartons of food based on how they feel at the moment. Moore's husband notices that one of ward 3 douche crew is an actual blind person, not someone afflicted with the disease, but a from birth blind person. He is depicted as gifted with special superpowers.
Alright, so Moore decides that it is better to play ball with ward 3 than risk anyones life ending their dictatorship. Now from the get go you know that rowdy fucker is trouble, more than likely the kind of guy who would kill his own mother to get ahead, so her attitude that somehow appeasing him and not using her ability against him is incredible.
As an audience member my first reaction is "So once we've handed over our belongings, and you give us enough food for a single day, what happens next?" Moore doesn't think this far ahead, her mental process is a complete unknown to anyone born with a living soul.
So things get worse, rowdy fucker discovers the intercom system and starts making decrees. First decree, give us your women.
I really didn't expect the next thirty minutes of the movie to take place. Moore, knows there are 8 guys in ward 3, she has seen them, and everyone is blind. When they demand women for food her husband worries that trying to fight back against rowdy fucker will lead to a multi ward war. Moore's husband is clueless as to the numbers of people in ward 3, Moore on the other hand knows, she is completely capable of finding out if she doesn't as well.
That was nice wasn't it. Anyway, Moore's response is to say "you know what? Why not? Who wants to come get raped?" So Moore has entertained notions of killing the king of ward 3 for a while, she has a pair of scissors she keeps eying every time he speaks, but you know what whatever, rape was on her bucket list.
So after a brutal rape scene, which could have been averted sixteen thousand ways to Sunday, she comes back to ward 3 with a dead coworker, killed during the unnecessary rape. She finally decides it might be time to do something before the next brutal rape, hers, not the women from ward 2 who are busily being raped. She heads on down to ward 3 and stabs the shit out of rowdy fucker, something that comes a little too late. Blind superman finds the gun, that somehow Moore decided simply wasn't worth grabbing when she was stabbing rowdy fucker. He grabs the gun and impotently fires at her as she escapes with the victims of the rape going on while she was stabbin' people.
Well her husband freaks out and is like "We gotta barricade the doors!" because he imagines the Persian army is about to barrel down the hallway. Moore is like "Whatever." and decides she won't mention the fact that there is now 6 people in ward 3 (she convinced blind fucker to shoot a confederate as she was escaping by playing sound games). So the barricades go up and people start arming themselves. Now when your General can see, and when maybe someone who has any brains might say "Lets make long poking spears from all this piping, and we'll stick close to the ground so the bullets will miss us because everyone will think to aim high!" but no, they make clubs, and walk down the hallway bunched together unsure where to point their cudgels. Fortunately we avert any more rapes or deaths because one of ward 1's women sneaks up to ward 3 and lights a bed on fire, effectively killing everyone inside and destroying the facility.
Lets jump back. Earlier in the film we learn from Danny Glover (fuckin' Murtaugh yo!) what is happening in the world. Apparently a bunch of round table discussions occur, nothing is solved concerning the disease (we never know what caused it, but this is a standard sci-fi trope so it's acceptable) and suddenly the person everyone pays attention to, the head of the National Health Organization reveals that she too has gone blind. So we have a world where people care more about her, than whoever the President is, plus there is a modern streamlined National Health Organization in a country with run down banana republic hospitals.
Anyway, this stupid ass movie carries on, apparently the guards are gone, everybody is blind now and Moore leads the few survivors we're supposed to sympathize with to her and her husbands home. I would get into the gritty details of her husbands tryst with a hooker and the loveless marriage he and his wife share in their soul crushing suburban neighborhood, but I am so fucking over this movie that I can hardly stand to keep typing. Suffice it to say that people regain their sight, and once that happens Moore looks out side, up at the sky and you get the feeling that her life has now lost all meaning since apparently the disease is about to go away. No more will she idly watch as people are killed during brutal rapes, and then lord over them like a Godhead because she's the only one that can find food. Never mind the fact the city has like 100 people in it tops.
Ultimate opinion of Blindness
FUCK YOU BLINDNESS I HOPE YOU DIE! YOU ARE NOT CHILDREN OF MEN!
How dare you sir. How dare you. First off, I highly like the film. You have issues, Marly And Me does not belong in your in a blog full of smart words about a dumb redheaded harlet and being blind. Fuck that movie. Marley And Me Ruled! I demand it removed. I've already started an online petition
ReplyDeletehttp://www.petitiononline.com/marleyme/petition.html
Remove It! The People demand it!
In the fairness of democracy I have signed your petition demanding I remove Marley and Me from this blog.
ReplyDeleteI new I could trust in democracy. You should read my blog...it's good. Very important things, linked, to government, and anthrax and such.
ReplyDelete