BLINDNESS by jaiskizzy

gist: during rush hour, a japanese guy goes blind behind the wheel with no apparent cause. the mysterious disease seems to be contagious and soon enough, every person he comes into contact with, the optometrist he consults and the other people in the waiting room, suffers the same fate, except for the optometrist's wife who pretends to be blind just to be with her husband. the "white sickness" spreads and the infected are quarantined in a facility where some have lost their sanity as well.

i wouldn't know what to do if i suddenly became blind. i rely too much on my vision, no matter how poor it has gotten. without my eyes, i wouldn't be able to watch movies, read, write, play video games and see my girlfriend's disarming beauty. hence, i wouldn't be able to live. anyways, so i took advantage of my working optic nerves and saw what it would be like if sight was taken away from people in an instant. no explanation, no symptoms and possibly no cure. needless to say, and yet here i am about to say it, it's a disaster. and that's what this film feels like, a disaster movie without floods or meteors or tornadoes and such but is every bit gripping. there were teeth-clenching moments that you'd think im watching a guy about to fall off a cliff but it's just a woman trying to keep her groceries away from the other "shoppers". intense. i guess i shouldn't be that surprised since the movie was directed by the same guy who did city of god and the constant gardener.

i was surprised to see casshern as the first victim. it's obvious that the filmmakers wanted to make the city generic by casting with different races, but this japanese man and his japanese wife and the chinese prime minister seemed out of place. i dont know. maybe it's just me being used to watching asian movies the way they are made. anyways, the story doesn't pick up until the infected are forced into the quarantine facility, where the effects of the sickness are represented by the three wards: the good-natured people, the neutrals, and the sick, evil bastards in ward 3, led by self-proclaimed king, gael garcia bernal. the moment these animals took over, even though they were the last batch to arrive, i was like, if that happened in the philippines, the greedy fucks wouldn't take that long to surface. you just know that even in a small group of pinoys, there's at least one who would immediately horde the supplies for himself/herself.

good, good movie. whether you take the message literally or metaphorically, you'd get it, well, if you're smart enough cause some people would probably just go, so, you'd go crazy if you're blind and shit?! anyway, i wish i could recommend this for family viewing but it has sex and violence so sorry, kids.


good: story, cinematography.
bad: what it all amounts to.
ugly: julianne moore crying.
verdict: 7 phoropters.


skizzy wonder.