Whither ‘Blindness’?
Julianne Moore in Blindness
One of the more anticipated films going into Cannes last spring was Blindness, the opening night selection from Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Constant Gardner) about a mysterious epidemic that causes people to go blind. With Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal, it seemed like it couldn’t miss, yet the critical response was decidedly mixed. Many grumbled that it was too gloomy and depressing.
I don’t take Cannes buzz very seriously. I think the high pressure and the hype and the expectations pervert people’s perspectives - especially when they’re on a deadline. To cite two recent examples, the festival buzz surrounding My Blueberry Nights and Marie Antoinette was widely off the mark, yet in both cases it stuck.
Blindness is opening in limited release on September 26 with a wider rollout in November and I’m wondering if I’m the only one who is excited about it. What say you?
Here’s the official website.
Filed under: Buzz
Tags: Blindness, Danny Glover, Fernando Meirelles, Gael Garcia Bernal, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo
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I’m still eagerly looking forward to it. Cannes buzz can indeed be unreliable. Sometimes I agree and sometimes I don’t. I agreed with the buzz surrounding MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS, but absolutely fell in love with MARIE ANTOINETTE and thought it was one of the best films of 2006 - it’s a woefully misunderstood film.
The trailer for BLINDNESS is terrific, but I get a very CHILDREN OF MEN-ish vibe from it. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I just hope it’s not a retread of similar ground.
Love, love LOVE the book. Bleak as all get out, unbelievably well-written. I’m definitely curious about the film, but it seems like one that will fall in that dead zone of being good, not great. That means the book’s fans will find it lacking, and the ones who haven’t read the book may wonder either what the big deal about the material is or why it had to be such a downer. I don’t see it going the distance, Oscar-wise, but I’d love to be wrong.
I just love that picture. Come on!
I also liked The Constant Gardner quite a bit more than so many seemed to, but then I read it as a tragic love story more than anything political.
Oscarwise, yeah, Blindness probably has a Children of Men’s chance in hell, but that’s ok with me.
One thing that bugged me about the original teaser (can’t remember if it was in the more recent trailer) was Sandra Oh’s speech. Nothing against her, it just seemed…I don’t know…something not right.
Nevertheless, this one is on my list.
I wonder Matthew, is it the near-future bleakness or the whitish cinematography that has you thinking CoM?
I would be more excited if the buzz was hotter, but I will likely be there, although probably not with bells on. However, if this was to pass me by somehow, I wouldn’t go into mourning.
Seriously, guys. Read the book next chance you get, whether this movie gains momentum or not. I pass it on to everyone, and no one’s ever not been bowled over by it.
Is this a “read the book before” or a “read the book after” kind of situation? And seeing as none of us have seen the film, including you, jenny, that’s probably an impossible question to answer right now.
Keeping expectations low, see what transpires.
Once a movie is ready to go, I’m all about waiting to read the book afterward.
The book is good enough that I feel confident it will surpass the film. As long as seeing the film doesn’t dissuade you from reading the book, it’s probably fine to wait. Same goes for the comparable literary achievement Revolutionary Road this year, and probably The Road, though I haven’t read that one yet.
I’m kinda iffy on Mereilles. Maybe I should revisit Constant Gardener through Craig’s tragic love story lens, though. City of God was incredible, but Constant Gardener left me flat, despite my love of all things Ralph Fiennes.
I was seriously underwhelmed by both of Meirelles’s first two movies, so he’s got an uphill battle for me.
This sounds like one of those art for art’s sake pictures that people pretend to like over dinner for six months and never watch again. Constant Gardner would fall into that category for me, as would almost anything that Julianne Moore’s done in the better part of ten years. The ’suffering woman” cliche of many acclaimed female parts feels like another form of sexism in movies to me.
Bad reviews haven’t dampened my anticipation of a new Meirelles film (and I’m in the bag for anything [post-]apocalyptic). And I’m with Craig on The Constant Gardener. That film was so much more than a political thriller with Fiennes and Weisz making for a believable relationship. It was my favorite film of ‘05. City of God was also a great film, but it didn’t leave the same impression on me.
For me, the only downside to Blindness so far was the trailer. I was glad it didn’t reveal too much of the plot, but the coffee commercial opening and passive sell didn’t do much to whet my appetite.
Craig, I’m waiting for this one too . . . and I agree “My Blueberry Nights” was much better than the Cannes buzz, which followed the picture like a plague.
So, Chuck, you don’t like art? For what or whose sake would you like art to be?
Obviously art should be for the sake of the beholder. Otherwise it’s a hollow exercise.
I love art that’s about something other than the typical canned, predictable, bleak-chic attitudes that are peddled over and over every year at a certain time and are made for usually no other reason than to win awards; pictures with symbolism ready made for people to congratulate themselves for catching. I feel like I’ve seen Blindness at least once every year for the last several years, and I’ve rarely enjoyed it.
I’d love to hear other examples Chuck because I think I tend to agree with you, but I’m not getting that vibe off of Blindness.
But it sounds like you’re describing Babel or 21 Grams.
Cold Mountain.
House of Sand and Fog
“I wonder Matthew, is it the near-future bleakness or the whitish cinematography that has you thinking CoM?”
Both, as well as the basic theme of an unknown malady striking panic in a dystopian world - CHILDREN OF MEN had infertility, BLINDNESS has, well, blindness.
I fall in the camp of not falling for Meirelles, but I’ll try to ignore the Cannes reaction and stay open to this. The assault on My Blueberry Nights, which continued all the way to its release with so many critics, was wrong, but despite the nastiness of much of the anti-Marine Antoinette reaction at Cannes (and wouldn’t you know the ever-unpleasant Jeff Wells viciously attacked one and went with the crowd with the other), I can’t say I disagree too much with many of the criticisms there. On top of that, I was strangely unmoved by Children of Men, though certain sequences were undeniably bravura.
Babel, Cold Mountain, and, honestly, the Eastwood Iwo Jima movies–to stir up that hornet’s nest at LiC again–all fall under the kind of film I think other posters are talking about. You could throw in Charlie Wilson’s War, but that would be mean; for a film that was picked remarkably early as the frontrunner because of the disparate pedigrees of the people involved, it had a certain boozy, rompish flair… That’s actually a film I wouldn’t mind seeing again one day–perhaps a testament to how something “un-Oscary/artsy” is usually more fun than something “Oscary/artsy.” Of course, I’ll take artsy over Oscary, since Oscary usually means something different from truly artsy… Eh, I’ll stop right there and go back to reading up for my next test.
While there is an awful lot I admire about Children of Men, the film’s straightforward, completely linear plot–it was basically a chase movie going from one checkpoint to another–left me wanting more of the good, juicy post-apocalyptic dark character/society stuff it had in it and less of the feeling that it would make a nice video game. It’s the one instance I can think of when I thought a more convoluted plot would have been helpful. Art direction, acting, direction, and cinematography, though, were all first rate.
Children of Men was probably my favorite film of 2007. Of course, when it comes to My Blueberry Nights, I have to concur with the advanced Cannes buzz. But I know I’m in the minority there.
I loved the book, so I am in.
alexander oscary usual mean normal ????
my blueberry nights how long do we have to wait for longer version of the film that played at cannes to hit video ?????
re blindness. i feel i can pretty much zone this one out.i’ve already seen the trailer a near double digit level from it’s been played pre films i want to see. or maybe i’ve already seen it 15 times. lord or whomever they’ve been playing this trailer for months.
and whomver was it at lic or ad mention the echo thing on people voices in the trailer. now that was comedy !!!! :)