Blindness

The film chosen to open Cannes this year is, at first glance, a rather surprising choice.

Blindness tells the story of a mysterious plague sweeping through modern America, rapidly resulting in mass loss of sight. Sufferers experience no warning signs of infection or physical trauma, until it is too late and sight is lost.

Seen from the eyes of a woman who is immune to the effects of the disease, watching helplessly as her husband, and community, fall into darkness; Blindness considers humanity, and loss of civilisation, as we lose the ability to visually perceive each other and our behaviour.

The poster seems to hint at the many 'slightly horror, possibly sci-fi, but not much between the ears' offerings that seem to have been quickly splattered across our screens in the last couple of years.

With Julianne Moore in the lead, all I could think of was Forgotten, and the fact that with the exception of Far From Heaven, she doesn't seem to have done particularly well with her film choices for a number of years. But, to be fair, she's capable - she just needs to the right kind of material to get her teeth into.

So, what is a film like this doing opening the 2008 Cannes film festival (apart from the probable business deals which went on behind the scenes, to secure the considerable status and benefit of being the opening film)...?

Well, on closer inspection, the signs are actually rather good:

Firstly, Blindness was directed by Fernando Meirelles, the Academy Award Nominee responsible for passionate, sincere, intelligent projects such as City Of God and The Constant Gardener. Add to this the fact that the film is adapted from a novel by Nobel Prize winning author Jose Saramago, ('Essay On Blindness') and things start to seem very good indeed.

The cast includes Julianne "oh-no-don't-let-this-be-another-mediocre-project" Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Sandra Oh, and the brilliant Gael Garcia Bernal, which should be a good sign.

While the official UK release date is yet to be announced, across the pond US cinemas will start to screen Blindness from the 16th September 2008.

I'm holding my judgement until I've seen it, but, considering the excellent track record of Meirelles, I for one am looking forward to it.

To help you make up your own mind, click on the title of this post to go to the official Blindness website, where you can watch the trailer. (There seems to have been a few gremlins with the embedding code offered on their site unfortunately, otherwise I'd have it showing here) - Enjoy.