Surviving from the mysterious illness that hits the whole city and leaves people blindness, a young woman and the wife of a famous optician does her best, in order to help her blind husband to survive from havoc.
Sadly, 'Blindness' may realise its director's worst fear: to produce not only an exploitation B-movie but one, paradoxically, spoiled by its own integrity and misplaced 'artistic' mise-en-scène and intentions.
It's hard to explain all the vitriol aimed at Meirelles' film, which is a beautifully shot picture that is as haunting and profound as it is thought-provoking.
The New Republic
October 03, 2008
Blindness is a glum, ugly film, and pretentious in the bargain. But, perhaps least excusable, it is a fundamentally ill-conceived film, the visual depiction of a world without sight.
Like the film's thematic elements, the camera trickery comes off as unnecessarily pretentious, the sort of thing film students applaud while mainstream audiences yawn.
Set in a nameless English-speaking city where people are suddenly stricken with sightlessness, it's an allegory that never rises to the level of believability.
The picture is elongated to a punishing two hours of suffering, infuriatingly slavish screenwriting, and a director who should be gifted the miracle of a tripod this upcoming holiday season.