Trailer Tuesday: Blindness

-


Oh boy, I'm really looking forward to the drama-thriller Blindness, based on the novel of the same name by José Saramago. Not that I've read the book but I've been sold on the plot synopsis alone:

Blindness is the story of an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in one (unnamed) city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows.

The film follows the misfortunes of a handful of characters who are among the first to be stricken and centers around a doctor and his wife (who inexplicably seems to be immune to the blindness), several of the doctor’s patients, and assorted others, thrown together by chance. This group bands together in a family-like unit to survive when they are quarantined in a filthy, overcrowded asylum.

Hygiene, living conditions, and morale degrade horrifically in the asylum over a very short period, mirroring the society outside.


I'm expecting Blindness to be both a harrowing and thought-provoking experience for cinema audiences... and frankly I wouldn't have it any other way. After a good few months now of largely forgettable popcorn flicks it's time for some cinema releases that get under your skin and really make you think.

I'm a big fan of the likes of Children of Men and 28 Days Later, so I have an especial fondness for these Lord of the Flies-style examinations of how humanity degrades under pressure and panic.

Blindness didn't exactly receive rave reviews at the Cannes International Film Festival earlier this year but I'm not going to be put off by a few curmudgeonly critics. Blindness has a very impressive pedigree, with Academy Award-nominee Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Constant Gardener) in the director's chair, and a fantastic cast that includes Julianne Moore, Gael García Bernal, Mark Ruffalo, Sandra Oh, Alice Braga and Danny Glover.


Blindness opens in limited release in the US on 19 September. No clue when it will be released in South Africa, but it's likely to be sometime in the new year... at Cinema Noveau only. Ho hum.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is the rebooted Lara Croft gay? Evidence for and against...

-
Image
As some of you know, I’ve been fangirling hard over the new Tomb Raider , the first entry in the video game series since 2008, and ostensibly a reboot for the entire franchise . Taking the form of an origin story, Tomb Raider 2013 depicts the events that transformed a beautiful, if bookish, archaeology graduate into a pistol-packing adventurer with a devil-may-care attitude. We meet Lara Croft as a pretty, fairly ordinary 21 year old, brooding over her work notes, listening to her mp3 player and very much confined to the shadow of her male mentors. By the end of the game, however, she’s taken charge – she’s had to! – and, battered, bruised and bloody, she’s both a survivor and hero, right down to rescuing the princess and carrying her away in her arms. Yeah, this is probably the best point to mention that there will be some Tomb Raider 2013 spoilers in this post, so read ahead with caution. Anyway, I loved the game. Technically it’s near faultless, it looks beautiful, the ov...
Read more

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Queer Icon (Part 4)

-
Image
Part 4: The mystery of Lara Croft’s sexuality “Now what’s a man gotta do to get that kind of attention from ya?” – Larson Conway (Tomb Raider, 1996) Despite being an icon for many queer pop culture consumers, Lara Croft’s own sexual orientation remains ambiguous. Outside of the Top Cow comics and live-action films – where Lara is blatantly heterosexual, with a fondness for slightly scruffy bad boys (who keep betraying and hurting her) – the character comes across as primarily asexual. Kurtis Trent is the only male figure who even comes close to being a love interest in the game series. Lara's apparent sexual disinterest is despite the adventurer appearing very sexually attractive herself; a figure of desire with bee-stung lips, voluptuous breasts, toned stomach and impossibly long, athlete’s legs. Yet Lara is never dominated by sexual yearnings or romantic affections. She is very much in control of herself at all times. It’s worth noting, however, that over time th...
Read more

Ladies I Love: Part 2 - Rhona Mitra

-
Image
Following on from the first post in this series , you may realise that I have a very definite type. Anyway, today we profile model-turned-actress Rhona Mitra . This 36 year old Briton is of English, Irish and Indian descent. You'll have seen her pop up on the big and small screen multiple over the past decade and a half, although Mitra's claim to fame is that she was the second ever model (some say first if you rule out "unofficial"  Nathalie Cook ) to play iconic video game character Lara Croft . From 1997-1998, Mitra could be found in PR material, as well as at trade shows, events and conventions as a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Tomb Raider 's kick-ass archeologist lead. There have been many official Lara Croft models over the years , but as far as I'm concerned Mitra remains the best. In my mind, of all of them, she most closely resembles the video game character in terms of facial features. Plus she comes from money and had a rebellious boarding...
Read more