{Shane Sevo.com} » Blindness…

Blindness

I like movies again. I can say that after watching this film. It’s been a while since I have experienced the uncomfortable power of cinematic story telling that grabs me, makes me squirm under a transcendent weight, and then allows me to relish in the revelation of knowing that only a film can bring.

As a hopeful and aspiring independent film maker, I have spent a lot of time watching films from across a wide gamut of film making prowess and intent. I used to watch films simply because I enjoyed them, but now it is hard to enter into that naive bliss without the learning and critique engine running to see what others have done and how they have done it.

When a film comes along and punches you in the gut hard enough to forget about the craft and just soak in the story, it is truly a beautiful moment. I believe “Blindness” is one of those films. Not that “Blindness” is shot in a mediocre fashion, to the contrary its story is wrapped in a steady stream of well crafted and beautiful shot composition, but calling it entertaining feels like a slur. It does that impossible work of forcing you to survey from end to end the scope of human depravity and sanctity through the lens of a single question…

What would happen if there was a sudden epidemic of human blindness?

Blindness
Director: Fernando Meirelles

Often times the movies that I appreciate most, come with a certain sadness that makes them meaningful and powerful, I believe “Blindness” is just such a movie. I am reminded of the scene from Schindler’s List where Oskar realizes the life saving project he had been caught up in and that human lives were somehow connected to his meager sacrifice of money and things as he hugs the fender of his car and contemplates the number of lives it represents. Somehow his humanity and bravery are only complete in this sad moment of knowing the worst of mankind and each individual’s struggle against flippancy, capriciousness, and apathy in order to be truly human.

In an odd sort of way this film seems to be the redemption of everything that is missing from the obsession with modern zombie films. I will refrain from a full lamenting of this genre only to say that it is almost always built upon the removal of whatever sentient faculties make us human and then forcing those “uninfected” humans to destroy the leftover physical flesh of this new inhuman species with an almost gleeful vengeance. As a Christian still trying to work out my theology in practice, this joy of killing the flesh has the allure of a worthy metaphor… but in the end it always seems to engender a gnostic hatred for humanity. I believe that “Blindness” presents the same “zombie” like depths of human depravity, but I also believe it is more honest in keeping the horror rooted in the wickedness of selfishness and demonstrated in the violent control brought about by fear and pain.

From this place I had to identify the worst that I am capable of as being on par with the atrocities I witnessed being trespassed in “Blindness”. In a horrific moment of rape and violence the person committed to walking the most painful path of love and sacrifice stands out as the only hope for mankind. That is a vision and a story that all of my theology ultimately rests upon in the theophany of Christ. “Blindness” presents many layers of allegorical consideration and commentary on the human condition and if the book is near as good as the movie I do believe its garnering of the Nobel Prize was very apt.

I am also looking forward to reading the original novel by Jose Saramago which won him the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998, every great film still starts with a great story right?