As a fan of Canadian cinema, I’m by default a fan of Don McKellar’s work. Aren’t we all, after all? McKellar wrote Blindness, a film which I really knew nothing about it before I watched it, other than the author’s previous work. In the film, a Japanese man (Yûsuke Iseya) living in an unknown city finds himself in suddenly blind while sitting in traffic. A man (McKellar) offers to drive him home, after getting him to his destination, he steals the car.
Blindness, while usually described as darkness is instead described as brightness. It slowly spreads from Iseya’s character to the Doctor to McKellar’s character to a prostitute who was in the clinic, etc. etc.
Eventually these characters end up in a prison setting as the Ministry of Health1 decides to quarantine the sick. The film turns into a Lord of the Flies situation as one ward tries to wield power over the others, and control the supply of food.
The story’s a bit cliché, but the cast, and acting, is phenomenal. The cinematography however did win me over. Dark, bleak, desperate; bright, shiny, blinding.
- The minister is played by Sandra Oh. [↩]
He didn’t write it – José Saramago did. I agree with everything in this review though.
And in CRAZY timing, he just passed away!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10352251.stm
José Saramago wrote the novel. Don McKellar wrote the screenplay, big difference.
True, but it’s basically the novel in a different format. Very little artistic license was taken and you didn’t mention the novel at all so I thought someone should.
Can’t mention something I haven’t read.