Blindness Review
Mar. 18th, 2011 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaNote: The weirdest thing about this movie is that none of the characters have names. I didn’t actually realise it until the end! So in order to talk about the characters I’m going to give them their actor’s first name just because it’s faster than writing out descriptions. Except Julianne because I think Julia fits her character better. So: Julia (Sighted), Mark (Doctor), Danny (man with black eye patch), Alice (woman with glasses/prostitute), Yusuke (first blind person), Yoshino (Yusuke’s wife) and Mitchell (young boy).
• I liked this movie overall. There were parts that were difficult to watch – the rape scene was horrific – and the time the movie spent in the asylum was very bleak. It was supposed to be bleak so it was very effective in that regard. The slow degradation of the situation in the asylum and of the people was pretty depressing. What ended up working for me was that it ended in optimism and hope. Movies can be just okay/eh but if it has a very strong ending it can make me like it a lot more (see The Hours, Cypher) and this is one of those movies.
• A reason that I did end up liking this movie in the end was that it hit one of my never-fail kinks – the made family. People choosing their own families is something I really love. In this movie after escaping the asylum the movie takes a turn for the hopeful and we’re suddenly presented with several of our more well known faces coming together into a made family. And it is fantastic. I love this made-family. I love how they came together, how they bonded, how they all moved in together. They even got a dog at the end and that makes me happy as well. I loved their dinner toast “to our family”
• When Yusuke realised he could see again and everyone started laughing and celebrating and just being generally gleeful I couldn’t stop smiling. That was a lovely scene.
• I like to imagine that they stayed together as a family, just as Danny wanted, for the rest of their lives. I mean they’d always be connected but I want to think that they continued to live together and be there for each other every day. It does make sense in a practical way because even if everyone did get their sight back post-movie the world is going to be completely messed up and for their survival and general well-being they’re going to need each other.
• The directing was different. There was a lot of emphasis on objects – the camera lingered on a bowl of fruit, on a pair of scissors, on a cup of coffee – throughout the movie. Little every day mundane things that we take for granted and what they could no longer see. I ended up loving it. I also liked how the ‘white sickness’ was filmed and that we got to see the white blindness from the point of view of the people stricken. I liked that later we got a short scene of normal blindness when Julia goes into the basement looking for food.
• I feel like I should address the rape scene but I kind of don’t want to. It was really horrifying. We get to see a little and hear a lot and just... ugh. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rape scene quite this graphic. Certainly the movie doesn’t shy away from how awful it is. The scene preceding it – with ward 1 debating the whole ‘women for food’ situation – was horrible as well.
• One thing I found interesting, and kind of liked (or, no, not the right word, perhaps appreciated), was how the discussion scene played out with regards to Yoshino. After her initial expression of relief/joy at finding her husband when she arrived Yoshino draws into herself and ends up in an almost catatonic state but when everyone starts debating she speaks up for the first time since that first day in order to say ‘I’ll go’. In a way it is her taking control. She lost it when she went blind and was locked up and basically lost all control over her life and her making a decision at that moment, a decision only she could make, felt a little like she was waking back up and taking control back. This is supported when Yusuke disagrees vehemently with her decision and she tells him decisively “don’t order me”.
• There were a number of moments between the female characters that I really like and a couple of them really stuck out to me and felt very powerful. I think that the female character’s actually got more attention paid to their relationships then the male/male ones did which is unusual. A list of moments:
- Julia’s response after catching Mark and Alice having sex. She doesn’t yell or scream, she doesn’t storm off, she doesn’t quietly leave to fume/angst to herself which are all responses I would have expected. Instead she waits until they are done and enters the room. She speaks quietly as she explains that she saw everything, she pretty much completely ignores her husband and instead focuses all her attention on Alice. Alice tries to take the blame and Julia shushes her and then she does something so unexpected – she turns to Alice and cups her neck and then whispers in Alice’s ear that she can see and that it’s a secret. Then Julia moves her hands to cup Alice’s face and gently continues to whisper to her though we can’t hear what she’s saying. Alice actually smiles, reaches out and touches Julia’s shoulder. The last shot of that scene is of the two women holding each other, whispering, as Mark continues to sit dejected/ashamed in the background (and the very last shot is of only the women). As a response to a ‘wife-confronts-mistress’ this is definitely the most unique take I’ve ever seen. And afterwards we don’t get scenes of Julia blaming or shaming Alice over what happened and instead it’s about Julia’s new lack of trust in her husband. I really love it.
- I really like that in the narrative there is no implication that it would be/was easier for Alice to give into ward 3’s demands or that it was somehow not rape or not as bad for her because she was a prostitute.
- After the rape scene we get all the women returning, silently, carrying the woman who was killed back to the ward. The carry her to a bed and gently lay her down and then all of them take a rag and with clean water they wipe her body down and it made me very teary-eyed. It was gentle and sad and kind of wonderful in a way and completely non-exploitive (there was no nudity) and was simply about women taking care of each other. It really got to me.
- When Julia and Mark return to their temporary resting spot with food and jackets we get this really wonderful moment. All the others are joyfully standing in the street revelling in the rain. A smiling Julia approaches Alice from behind and holds onto her shoulders before they pull each other into a hug, Alice grinning the whole time. And then Yusuke and Yoshino join the hug and it’s this happy group hug of love and it was beautiful and made me smile.
- I love Alice naming Julia as their leader and stating how lucky they are because of that. I love how ‘vision’ has a double meaning. I love that Julia doesn’t even look to see Alice looking at her but just answers as if it’s obvious that Alice is talking to her. I really liked how the movie went from Julia pushing Mark into a leadership role but by the end she has accepted her place as leader.
- The three women – Julia, Alice and Yoshino – stand on the balcony showering in the rain, talking and being open and supportive. They laugh and are just so happy with each other and there’s a new freedom in them. I loved that scene.
“In my dreams you’re always beautiful.” – Alice
“How come you’ve never appeared in my dreams and I know you’re beautiful?” – Yoshino
I love this exchange. I loved them all reassuring each other that they were beautiful.
Also this scene – specifically Alice’s line about her dreaming about Julia – cemented me totally shipping them. Their interactions were my favourite ones.
• I did find myself wishing that Julia had acted sooner against the king of ward 3 because as the only one who could see she had a very distinct advantage over him. In fact a couple of times I wondered why she didn’t just take over. When they first entered the asylum Julia immediately stepped into supporting her husband and pushing him into a leadership role. I was okay about that in the beginning because I felt like it was about her hiding her ability to see but as the movie went on and she wore herself ragged running around trying to help and keep things together I just wanted her to step up and take charge. When ward 3 took over the food I wanted her to fight back because it was so obvious that not only was that not going to end anywhere good but that the danger was probably going to escalate. Hmm. I guess I’m wishing that she had turned to violence as soon as ward 3 turned aggressive and I can see how and why she didn’t.
• Mark as a character is probably my least favourite of the group. I don’t dislike him, and I certainly do feel for him, but he is kind of a dick. There’s when he slept with Alice, but okay he was traumatised and feeling isolated from Julia, etc but there were also other moments like when he was talking about how the ‘king of ward 3’ sounded black (a bit of bigotry there) and, a huge part of the reason, his line about “it’ll hurt my male pride” with regards to Julia exchanging herself for food which really annoyed me.
• I really have to wonder though about the group being whittled down to just the eight of them post-asylum. I mean everyone in ward one knew that Julia could see so why wouldn’t they stick with her? Considering the fact that she took care of them for possibly months and that she ended up living through what was an ‘us-vs-them’ situation with them I don’t think she would have rejected any of them (like she does to the group who come across the first shelter they find). It just seems very strange to me that her group at the end had so few people in it. I wish we could have seen more of how everyone broke off.
• I wonder what happened to poor pharmacist assistant who ended up separated from the group at the end? You’d think that being blind and out in the world they’d have been a lot more paranoid about losing track of each other. Why didn’t Danny notice and why didn’t the assistant call out for them?
• I was rather surprised by how limited a role Sandra Oh had because she was named high in the credits and she’s in the trailer and yet she literally has three scenes and in each scene she speaks only one sentence. She basically does a cameo.
• I liked this movie overall. There were parts that were difficult to watch – the rape scene was horrific – and the time the movie spent in the asylum was very bleak. It was supposed to be bleak so it was very effective in that regard. The slow degradation of the situation in the asylum and of the people was pretty depressing. What ended up working for me was that it ended in optimism and hope. Movies can be just okay/eh but if it has a very strong ending it can make me like it a lot more (see The Hours, Cypher) and this is one of those movies.
• A reason that I did end up liking this movie in the end was that it hit one of my never-fail kinks – the made family. People choosing their own families is something I really love. In this movie after escaping the asylum the movie takes a turn for the hopeful and we’re suddenly presented with several of our more well known faces coming together into a made family. And it is fantastic. I love this made-family. I love how they came together, how they bonded, how they all moved in together. They even got a dog at the end and that makes me happy as well. I loved their dinner toast “to our family”
• When Yusuke realised he could see again and everyone started laughing and celebrating and just being generally gleeful I couldn’t stop smiling. That was a lovely scene.
• I like to imagine that they stayed together as a family, just as Danny wanted, for the rest of their lives. I mean they’d always be connected but I want to think that they continued to live together and be there for each other every day. It does make sense in a practical way because even if everyone did get their sight back post-movie the world is going to be completely messed up and for their survival and general well-being they’re going to need each other.
• The directing was different. There was a lot of emphasis on objects – the camera lingered on a bowl of fruit, on a pair of scissors, on a cup of coffee – throughout the movie. Little every day mundane things that we take for granted and what they could no longer see. I ended up loving it. I also liked how the ‘white sickness’ was filmed and that we got to see the white blindness from the point of view of the people stricken. I liked that later we got a short scene of normal blindness when Julia goes into the basement looking for food.
• I feel like I should address the rape scene but I kind of don’t want to. It was really horrifying. We get to see a little and hear a lot and just... ugh. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rape scene quite this graphic. Certainly the movie doesn’t shy away from how awful it is. The scene preceding it – with ward 1 debating the whole ‘women for food’ situation – was horrible as well.
• One thing I found interesting, and kind of liked (or, no, not the right word, perhaps appreciated), was how the discussion scene played out with regards to Yoshino. After her initial expression of relief/joy at finding her husband when she arrived Yoshino draws into herself and ends up in an almost catatonic state but when everyone starts debating she speaks up for the first time since that first day in order to say ‘I’ll go’. In a way it is her taking control. She lost it when she went blind and was locked up and basically lost all control over her life and her making a decision at that moment, a decision only she could make, felt a little like she was waking back up and taking control back. This is supported when Yusuke disagrees vehemently with her decision and she tells him decisively “don’t order me”.
• There were a number of moments between the female characters that I really like and a couple of them really stuck out to me and felt very powerful. I think that the female character’s actually got more attention paid to their relationships then the male/male ones did which is unusual. A list of moments:
- Julia’s response after catching Mark and Alice having sex. She doesn’t yell or scream, she doesn’t storm off, she doesn’t quietly leave to fume/angst to herself which are all responses I would have expected. Instead she waits until they are done and enters the room. She speaks quietly as she explains that she saw everything, she pretty much completely ignores her husband and instead focuses all her attention on Alice. Alice tries to take the blame and Julia shushes her and then she does something so unexpected – she turns to Alice and cups her neck and then whispers in Alice’s ear that she can see and that it’s a secret. Then Julia moves her hands to cup Alice’s face and gently continues to whisper to her though we can’t hear what she’s saying. Alice actually smiles, reaches out and touches Julia’s shoulder. The last shot of that scene is of the two women holding each other, whispering, as Mark continues to sit dejected/ashamed in the background (and the very last shot is of only the women). As a response to a ‘wife-confronts-mistress’ this is definitely the most unique take I’ve ever seen. And afterwards we don’t get scenes of Julia blaming or shaming Alice over what happened and instead it’s about Julia’s new lack of trust in her husband. I really love it.
- I really like that in the narrative there is no implication that it would be/was easier for Alice to give into ward 3’s demands or that it was somehow not rape or not as bad for her because she was a prostitute.
- After the rape scene we get all the women returning, silently, carrying the woman who was killed back to the ward. The carry her to a bed and gently lay her down and then all of them take a rag and with clean water they wipe her body down and it made me very teary-eyed. It was gentle and sad and kind of wonderful in a way and completely non-exploitive (there was no nudity) and was simply about women taking care of each other. It really got to me.
- When Julia and Mark return to their temporary resting spot with food and jackets we get this really wonderful moment. All the others are joyfully standing in the street revelling in the rain. A smiling Julia approaches Alice from behind and holds onto her shoulders before they pull each other into a hug, Alice grinning the whole time. And then Yusuke and Yoshino join the hug and it’s this happy group hug of love and it was beautiful and made me smile.
- I love Alice naming Julia as their leader and stating how lucky they are because of that. I love how ‘vision’ has a double meaning. I love that Julia doesn’t even look to see Alice looking at her but just answers as if it’s obvious that Alice is talking to her. I really liked how the movie went from Julia pushing Mark into a leadership role but by the end she has accepted her place as leader.
- The three women – Julia, Alice and Yoshino – stand on the balcony showering in the rain, talking and being open and supportive. They laugh and are just so happy with each other and there’s a new freedom in them. I loved that scene.
“In my dreams you’re always beautiful.” – Alice
“How come you’ve never appeared in my dreams and I know you’re beautiful?” – Yoshino
I love this exchange. I loved them all reassuring each other that they were beautiful.
Also this scene – specifically Alice’s line about her dreaming about Julia – cemented me totally shipping them. Their interactions were my favourite ones.
• I did find myself wishing that Julia had acted sooner against the king of ward 3 because as the only one who could see she had a very distinct advantage over him. In fact a couple of times I wondered why she didn’t just take over. When they first entered the asylum Julia immediately stepped into supporting her husband and pushing him into a leadership role. I was okay about that in the beginning because I felt like it was about her hiding her ability to see but as the movie went on and she wore herself ragged running around trying to help and keep things together I just wanted her to step up and take charge. When ward 3 took over the food I wanted her to fight back because it was so obvious that not only was that not going to end anywhere good but that the danger was probably going to escalate. Hmm. I guess I’m wishing that she had turned to violence as soon as ward 3 turned aggressive and I can see how and why she didn’t.
• Mark as a character is probably my least favourite of the group. I don’t dislike him, and I certainly do feel for him, but he is kind of a dick. There’s when he slept with Alice, but okay he was traumatised and feeling isolated from Julia, etc but there were also other moments like when he was talking about how the ‘king of ward 3’ sounded black (a bit of bigotry there) and, a huge part of the reason, his line about “it’ll hurt my male pride” with regards to Julia exchanging herself for food which really annoyed me.
• I really have to wonder though about the group being whittled down to just the eight of them post-asylum. I mean everyone in ward one knew that Julia could see so why wouldn’t they stick with her? Considering the fact that she took care of them for possibly months and that she ended up living through what was an ‘us-vs-them’ situation with them I don’t think she would have rejected any of them (like she does to the group who come across the first shelter they find). It just seems very strange to me that her group at the end had so few people in it. I wish we could have seen more of how everyone broke off.
• I wonder what happened to poor pharmacist assistant who ended up separated from the group at the end? You’d think that being blind and out in the world they’d have been a lot more paranoid about losing track of each other. Why didn’t Danny notice and why didn’t the assistant call out for them?
• I was rather surprised by how limited a role Sandra Oh had because she was named high in the credits and she’s in the trailer and yet she literally has three scenes and in each scene she speaks only one sentence. She basically does a cameo.
