GREAT MOVIES: Sunrise - A Song of Two Humans (1927)

I have a feeling that for as long as I live, the two greatest film of all time will always be Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) and F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise (1927). On a technical level both films bring out the impossible and although the techniques used today in standard filmmaking are different and more advanced, it still looked more impressive back then.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is the heartwarming and breaking story of a farmer (George O’Brien) who is unfaithful to his wife (Janet Gaynor). He has an affair with a city woman (Margaret Livingston) and she is wicked; wearing her exotic city clothes just the right way, teasing him with fresh lipstick and promising to take him with her and live in the city. The farmer, of course refuses to leave and so she drops the bomb on him: she proposes the farmer drown his wife in the lake and run off with her. The thought of murder is extremely cruel and the farmer becomes angry. He strangles the city woman but then, ironically, realizes that he might just have it in him to do exactly what she had proposed. He yells at her and orders her to leave him be and takes a walk around the swamps surrounding his farm. The sun is fast approaching and he must make an important decision.

The farmer tells his wife in the morning that he would love to take her on a boat ride. She, suspecting his affair with the city woman through village gossip, still accepts his invitation believing that he has changed. While drifting in the river on the boat, the farmer stands erect and his angry fists reshape into claws. He approaches his wife, hands toward her throat and with a wild look in his eyes...

She yells and he awakens. Recognizing the look on her simple but dainty face, he feels like the worst human being on the planet and immediately begs her for forgiveness. He rows the boat to the nearest shore and she runs off. He takes chase. They arrive in The City. After almost being run over by several cars the farmer protects his wife and they proceed to have the greatest day of their lives.



In 1926 Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau moved to the United States. After receiving critical praise for his film The Last Laugh (1924) he was given carte blanche and Sunrise was his first American film; but unlike Orson Welles, he did not lose his career afterwards. It was worse than that, actually because he was killed in a car crash in 1931, four years after the release of Sunrise.

Sunrise has stood the test of time because when Hollywood was fast approaching the talkies, many directors still wanted to continue making films in the silent form; but most had wanted to transfer over and quickly. Talkies first appeared in 1927 with The Jazz Singer and by 1930, the whole world was aware of the phenomenon. Charles Chaplin released City Lights in 1931, still as a silent film, and the whole world was astonished that he didn't conformwith the times. However, it was still viewed as amasterpiece and rightly so. It's also, still considered to be his best film, and one of the best silent comedies of all time.

Many call Murnau the master of German Expressionism and his greatest ally, and competition, was Fritz Lang (the discussion is still raging on). Most still prefer the artistic style of Murnau because Lang's films were either too farfetched or had too much overacting (if that's even possible). Try comparing M (1931) to Nosferatu (1922): you can't. I say they're like apples and oranges. They're both of the same medium but are of different species.



The cinematography here is worth noting even today, because some shots seem impossible. How can one possibly dolly track while in a swamp? Well, Charles Rosher, Karl Struss, and Murnau had figured it out that they could use a platform that hovered over the swamp while the camera was locked onto it, and the platform was suspended by strong cables. There are also plenty of forced perspective shots, much like how Lang shot Metropolis (1926). Mirrors were strategically placed around the sets providing the illusion that certain people were on different areas in the frame, and sets that were much smaller than others were also placed in the background of certain shots. Those sets physically got smaller as you walked through them. Sometimes midgets were used for wide shots from afar (like the airport runway in Casablanca).

If Citizen Kane is the textbook on how to make films, then so is Sunrise. Kane is as much a special effects picture as Sunrise and even though Sunrise lacks sound it still gets the job done, containing a strong emotional core through brilliant, atmospheric cinematgrpahy and powerful, reliastic performances.

In 1929, the first ever Oscars Ceremony was held and Sunrise won 3 awards in the categories of Best Cinematography (Charles Rosher, Karl Struss), Best Actress In a Leading Role (Janet Gaynor - who'd also won two other Oscars that year for Seventh Heaven and Street Angel), and Best Unique and Artistic Production (Best Picture).

Every time that I watch this film I see something new in it. Whether it's a gesture that someone makes or a camera movement I had missed before, Sunrise feels new every time. And just remember: this is an American film with an American cast and it was directed by F.W. Murnau, who directed and conceptualized Nosferatu (1922) and Faust (1926). It's more than just a triumph it's an important film, and it will always provide audiences with the emotions that they forgot they once had.

GREAT MOVIES: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)

Fritz Lang bailed out on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to work on Die Spinnen (aka The Spiders), and when Robert Wiene took over the project he opened the doorway to feature films that incorporate the flashback setting, the horror setting, and this still being the greatest example of German Expressionism. With its Lovecraftian styled architecture, its political standings and satire of the German government, and the pale-faced psychopathic somnambulist from hell, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari stands among the best horror films to ever have been made.

Of course having read the blood chilling origins of the Caligari tale, we know that Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer did not write a screenplay about a government that brainwashes and puppeteers its citizens, and there is no Nazi symbolism here either. The Nazi party was formed in 1933 and this film was made between the years of 1919 and 1920, for starters.

According to Wikipedia, in 1913 Janowitz had the unfortunate luck of witnessing a stranger exit a row of bushes and disappearing into the shadows of the night. The next morning a young woman’s body was found ravaged. He told that tale to Mayer and it scared them stiff. Also, many times they would enter a fair and one night they had witnessed a sideshow called “Man and Machine”, in which a man did feats of strength and predicted the future, supposedly under hypnosis. They combined those elements into a horror film screenplay and tried to get Erich Pommer to green light the production. After hearing the origin tales he was convinced and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was underway.

Werner Krauss plays the deranged Dr. Caligari and he approaches a fairground in the mountain village of Holstenwall. He appeals to present his performance in the fair and receives a grant. That night, the audience of the fairground witnesses a pale, mushroom cut, somnambulist, played creepily by Conrad Veidt, who apparently had been sleeping for 23 years; and he can also foretell the future. He exclaims that someone in the crowd will die before sunrise, and boy is he right. That night the protagonist’s (Francis, played by Friedrich Fehér) best friend is murdered in his own bed.

The somnambulist (Cesare) and Dr. Caligari are not immediately suspected because there are rumors around of a serial killer on the loose as is. Was Caligari using that knowledge as a front for hiding his own murders?

Cesare looks creepy. He wears full body black spandex and walks like a marionette, but without the strings. He has deep penetrating black circles around his eyes and they hypnotize and creep people out.

One morning the lovely Jane, an acquaintance of Francis, ventures into the fairgrounds and bumps into Dr. Caligari; he decides to showcase Cesare to her. Encased in a vertically erect coffin, Cesare opens his eyes and stares into those of Jane. He becomes entranced and she frightened. She runs off. That night Francis decides to spend the night outside of Caligari’s house to monitor him and the somnambulist. Plausibility unbeknown to anyone, Cesare pays Jane a visit at the same time and kidnaps her. A chase ensues: Cesare with Jane in his arms, clinging to walls in the streets and almost dancing freakishly, the police hot on his tail. The morning comes and he passes out letting go of Jane. Francis cannot believe that Cesare is caught because he was sleeping inside his coffin the entire night. He must have been!

Now that I got your attention that is all that I will say about the story. The origins and ideals of German Expressionism work mainly through the actors’ body language and strange architectural backgrounds. Usually, a tormented soul or dementia is involved, much like in this classic film. Seeing that the film opens in an insane asylum and that the story is told though the flashbacks of Francis, one can only guess what goes on in his noggin.

Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1926) is another great, classic example of German Expressionism but it’s not a horror film so dementia in not present. The actors throw themselves around the sets; they throw their arms towards the heavens and decree that something is wrong with the system and must be righteous again. Rudolf Klein-Rogge plays professor Rotwang, the evil scientist that built the man-machine (an early version of an android). Equipped with black leather gloves and wild white hair he throws his right hand toward the heavens in a cry of insanity, clutching his heart with his left, many times throughout the film. You can smell the passion that the actors portray and especially the one of Gustav Fröhlich.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was seen by many, probably millions, by now and is almost unanimously a great example of its genre. By today’s standards the makeup in the film is dodgy and the sets look like bristol-paper cutouts, which they were. But the film is terrifically atmospheric and, for the most part one does not notice the “fakeness” of it. There is no perfect angle or a straight line, per se, in this film. Windowpanes are crooked as are the houses themselves. One almost feels confined and prays that another’s house will not fall on them. But the crooked architecture in the disturbed psyche stands on its own and frightens its citizens by remaining as is. There is also a great use of shadow-play in this film, reminiscent of Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922.) Seeing a tall shadow creep along a wall, disembodied and alone until the creature, its master emerges into frame. The creature is more frightening than its shadow. That was Count Orlock (played cautiously and mysteriously by Max Schrek), that was Cesare (Conrad Veidt), and even now they are The Strangers from Dark City (Richard O’Brien, Ian Richardson, and Bruce Spence).

Film noir, another film genre that I love, needs to provide special thanks to German Expressionism: Dutch angles, superimposed shadows, lots of night scenes, and the feeling of dread and evil around the corner. German Expressionism will live on as a lesson in atmosphere and silent storytelling. Visually grand and rich in character, Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen (1924), Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) are long going to fill voids and enter uncorrupted minds alongside this pinnacle of perfection, that is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. And Cesare will never be forgotten; like his successors Gwynplain (also played by Conrad Veidt in Paul Leni’s The Man Who Laughs (1928)) and The Joker (from the Batman series).

Quarantine (2008)

This film is some kind of bad. Last night I'd watched REC for the second time just so that I could admire its cinematography. Then I watched Quarantine and what can I say that hasn't already been said? This is a carbon copy, surprisingly shot by shot remake of REC but REC involves a subplot about a scientist who has been decreed by the Vatican to find the cure to a certain girl's possession, which is centered on a type of virus. Quarantine deals with evil cults and the virus that infects everyone is, get this: rabies. A mutated therefore, accelerated version of rabies that causes frothing at the mouth, tears, dementia, and lots of running around and screaming. So where's the zombie aspect? Are we truly supposed afraid of a few tenants who are running around, infected with mutated rabies? Oh, please.

Now, for the technical aspects. Let's just run a quick check list:

- Claustrophobia (check)
- Screaming (check)
- The Shaky Camera Syndrome (check)
- Nauseatingly bad cinematography where the cameraman always records what is chasing him rather than where he's running to (check)
- The cameraman not turning off the camera when being chased but rather shaking it as much as possible and even taking it off his shoulders sometimes (check)

This film is a misguided and mishandled concoction that was headed toward a dead end and right from the start. The results are as follows: this film is literally too dark, at all times; the camera operator overuses the rack zoom and far too frequently; and every actor in the film overacts so much that it becomes embarrassing. That includes Jennifer Carpenter who is excellent in the series Dexter and a terrific little horror film titled The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

I didn't want to hate this movie but it's a carbon copy of REC. It doesn't try to do anything different, in any way, except ruin the original film and its intriguing story. This film reminds me of Gus Van Sant's superfluous remake of Psycho (1998) but at least he made up for it with Milk (2008).

I wonder what director John Erick Dowdle (who?) has in store for us next.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

I will attempt to refrain from making comparisons between this film and Forrest Gump (1994) by stating one simple and short sentence: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button IS Forrest Gump. Screenwriter Eric Roth is being honored at this year’s Oscars ceremony with a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for this film. He wrote Forrest Gump fifteen years ago and when recently asked about the similarities he, astoundingly answered with: I had Benjamin Button on my mind when I wrote Forrest Gump.

How? What does one have to do with the other? I read the F. Scott Fitzgerald novella, all 21 pages of it, and I ask myself “how did Eric Roth adapt a 21 page book into a 2 hour and 45 minute film about a man who ages backwards?” And unlike the book, this Benjamin Button is not born old in physical and mental terms, only physical.

Now knowing that, if you take out the reverse aging aspect from the story you have the same film.

I issue a spoiler warning right now.

Brad Pitt plays Benjamin Button utilizing a very bland performance and the titular character is, as stated above, born old. At first he is a baby but has very shriveled skin and his bones are weak. He is such an abomination that his father, upon first glance, steals the baby from the hospital and drops him off at a retirement home. Because he is physically old he can not walk but, guess what? Neither can a baby. Infants and the elderly are almost one and the same: they lack hair and teeth, they can barely walk, and they have a weak skeleton. So if Ben Button was to be born an infant this film would still be the same.

Button befriends a young girl named Daisy and they hit it off. She finds him strange, an old man who hides under tables and plays with little girls, and he finds her to be what he wishes he was. Then again, Benjamin, fueled by a lackluster performance by Pitt, is so bland that whenever you look at his face or into his eyes you see nothing; it’s like running into a brick wall. Benjamin is a simpleton, recently dubbed a Southern Naïf, and therefore, completely and utterly uninteresting. That is when the supporting players must come into play and make everything around Button interesting. But alas, we already saw Forrest Gump. I am not kidding when I say that you will know everything that is going to happen.

Button grows up with a walking disability and overcomes it and then he decides to travel the world. He cruises on a tugboat with a drunkard and witnesses the follies of World War II. Upon returning home, in his early 20’s and looking like he’s in his late 60’s, he reunites with his slowly aging mother and with Daisy who now looks like a prettied-up Cate Blanchett. They hit it off well, but only as acquaintances, and she leaves to pursue her career of dancing the ballet.

Time goes by where nothing happens. Button’s dad decides to meet him and to give him his button-making company before he dies. Then Daisy returns home and decides to live with Button as a couple.

That’s an hour and a half of the film so far. In the next hour and ten minutes not much else happens except that Button grows younger, Daisy grows older, they have a child and grow apart. Then they reunite again and again they cannot be together. Then Button is an infant.

The End.

The cinematography, the second-most notable aspect in this film is truly fantastic. Giant superimposed shadows like in noir pictures, flashbacks that look like footage from the 1910’s with flickering images and color tinting, long tracking shots that seem impossible but we know that in the movies nothing is impossible! The most notable aspect is somehow invisible to the general audience and it is that Brad Pitt is entirely computer generated for the first half hour of the film. From when Button is born until he is as tall as Brad Pitt he is entirely computer generated. I can tell because his features are perfect, he is constantly shiny and glossy, and when his clothing wrinkles they wrinkle in a repeated sequence. This means that for cinephiles, this movie should be rather annoying. Why not use the Lord of the Rings approach (a film series that I greatly dislike) and simply shoot those difficult scenes twice? Or how about state of the art special effects makeup? I’m quite certain that this film is being nominated for an Oscar for its makeup but it lacks it a bunch.

Don’t let my rating for this film fool you, it’s not a 50% deal. I am not recommending this film at all to anyone who likes original films that stand out due to having a great story and great performances.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is being nominated at the Oscars this year for 13 awards and I think it only deserves one: Best Cinematography. But hey, film students and experts can’t be in the Oscar committee so my opinion is superfluous. I don’t hate this film I just think it’s an hour too long and is entirely unimportant and uninteresting.

Shame on you, David Fincher. You are one of my favorite living American filmmakers and now you have directed, to quote Roger Ebert, two “good-looking BAD movies”; the first one was Alien 3 (1992).

I love Zodiac (2007) and placed it in the #3 slot in my Top 10 Films of 2006 list, right behind Letters from Iwo Jima (#1) and The Departed (#2). I also love Fincher’s Se7en (1995), The Game (1997), and Fight Club (1999). So what ever happened to substance in films? Is it no longer important?

Do yourselves a favor and read the novella. It’s a terrific social satire and it’s really neat. Just forget about The Curious Case of Forrest Gump.

*REC (2007)

REC is a great example of how a film can be made with a very small amount of special effects and a moderate budget. Spanish films had had their ups lately with Rec and with another excellent horror flick called The Orphanage (2007). Both films are fueled by atmosphere and good performances, leaving the plot elements to be gathered properly throughout and put into place properly in the third act.

REC is about a television reporter and her cameraman who are shooting a piece about what firefighters do when everybody’s asleep. Of course it’s late at night and they grow bored stiff. That is until the alarm goes off and a crew of firefighter is dispatched to the scene where a woman is locked in her apartment. The TV reporter and her cameraman are allowed to tag along and in the three-story apartment building they arrive at an old woman is bloodied and out of her mind. She attacks one of the firefighters and bites him severely in the neck. It’s gruesome and it’s awesome and it’s still early in the film, and we immediately subconsciously know that it’s going to be a zombie film.

The firefighter is carried downstairs to the lobby, where he is to be escorted to the paramedics unit that is waiting outside in the street but the group find themselves locked inside the building along with all its tenants. A police force is waiting outside the building and they quickly quarantine it while yelling into a megaphone what is happening outside. They tell the crew and tenants that the officer locked inside the building with them will be issuing orders to them while they instruct him on the situation via his dispatch radio.

Minutes later another police officer’s body plummets from the stairway onto the lobby floor, crashing with blood spraying everywhere.

From here on out it’s not your usual zombie flick because you only have about ten characters and the building has three floors, one of which is unexplored until the end. One by one, some become infected and run amuck trying to bite others and infect them and the main crew find themselves running up and down the stairs quite frequently:

“We must go there and find this person”, and “Oh no! She’s disappeared! …wait, there she is! Run!”

You hear that quite a lot but it never repeats itself because there is only so much you can do inside a small building. From here on I will reveal nothing further that happens in the film except to say that the last fifteen minutes are some of the creepiest, scariest minutes I have ever seen in a film.

REC is shot entirely through the perspective of the cameraman, which is a familiar growing style but only some movies pull it off well, like George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead, and some fail miserably, like Cloverfield.

It looks like it was shot with only five or six edits but I know the magic behind filmmaking and I know that there are many hidden edits. Whenever there is a dark segment on screen that lasts for even a couple of frames an edit can be hidden in there, but viewing the film a second time I honestly could not find so many hidden edits and that is a sign of great filmmaking and editing.

This movie was made two years ago and it finally makes its way onto video in North American. It also has an English dub so weaklings and egoists can watch it, too. Last but not least, a similar film called Quarantine has hit theatres a few months back and apparently it’s a shot by shot remake of this film. I ask you "why"? Was this movie so terrible that it had to be remade? If you go to IMDB or Rottentomatoes you’ll notice that everyone hates Quarantine but loves REC. Why? Because REC came first, that’s why. Nobody likes a lazy remake.

GREAT MOVIES: Dark City (1998)

*Note as of 07/10/12* - Click here to read my more up to date review of Dark City on Commentary Track.

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A little over 10 years ago I watched Dark City in the theatres, for the first time and I distinctly remember being absolutely blown away. The cinematography is breathtaking: the olden buildings, the elevated streamlined trains flying over pedestrians’ heads, the '30s, '40s, and '50s noirish shadows and Dutch angles, and, of course the feeling of a more contemporary version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926). This city also reminds me of the one depicted within Blade Runner (1982), but, ironically has a bit more life to it. It has less of the hustle and bustle of an overpopulated megapolis and the atmosphere of a properly captured forgotten moment in time.

Dark City tells a detective story, a story of identity and finding oneself, a classical science fiction tale, and somewhere in its center lies a love story. John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) suffers from lack of memories and tries to piece his past together, but nothing seems to connect because whatever memories are still in his mind are not real (more on that soon). Emma Murdoch (Jennifer Connelly) is John's wife, who finds it hard to believe when John's doctor, Doctor Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland), tells her that John's suffered from a psychotic break and complete memory loss.

John finds in his overcoat pockets newspaper clippings that suggest he is a serial killer, and inspector Frank Bumstead (William Hurt) is on his case. Bumstead follows leads and ends up nowhere. In fact, he ends up further away from the truth and so do Emma and John.

To add to Bumstead’s case running in circles, I am reminded of an early scene in the film where John awakens and emerges naked from a bathtub. He then, accidentally knocks over a fishbowl. He picks up the fish and places it in water in the bathtub. Later, when Bumstead inspects Murdoch's apartment, he asks a fellow police officer: "What kind of a killer stops to save a dying fish?" Inspector Bumstead is tired but alert and he was on the beat for a long time, but still plays by the rules.

On the other side of the spectrum, Dr. Schreber is more of a Nazi-type scientist who simply follows orders. Equipped with blond, parted hair and round metal-framed spectacles, a crooked eye, and a limp, he does everything that he is told to do by The Strangers.

The Strangers are a race of aliens that had come down a long time ago and began to experiment with human test subjects. We learn that their race is dying and that they want to study human beings to find out what makes them tick. To that end, they borrow human corpses and use them as vessels. The Strangers look very pale. They have an affinity to strappy leather clothing and they wear overcoats and fedoras outdoors just like we do. They're kind of like vampires with their leather fetish and sensitivity to sunlight, but there is nothing erotic or exotic about them. They also have the ability to "tune", which is a form of telekinesis; it allows them to fly in between buildings, create non-existent doorways within brick walls and even push people back without laying a finger. The Strangers have found out that John Murdoch has the same abilities they do, and they are terribly worried about it.

The city literally changes shape every time the clock strikes twelve and every human citizen mysteriously falls asleep: everyone, but John. He wanders around the dark city and watches as buildings erect from the ground up and some others simply disappear back into it. Some buildings even slide horizontally across the streets and merge with other buildings. In one incident John Murdoch was on a fire escape and noticed another building sliding towards him. His coat has caught on the corner of the fire escape and he managed to free himself at the last second and enter the building before being crushed.

Upon the citizens falling asleep, The Strangers invade their homes and change their identities. Dr. Schreber injects new memories into the subject's foreheads creating "new personalities", and then life goes on for another twelve hours. There is a wonderful scene in the film where a night watchman shares with his wife that his boss will take him off night duty (a personal joke from the writers) and within seconds the couple fall asleep in their soups. The Strangers enter their home and change them into elitist, rich snobs. Their house gains a few stories, a huge foyer with gargantuan support pillars appear and so does a beautiful skylight. The dinner table is stretched three times its size, in reminiscence of Citizen Kane but much quicker, and finally the couple awaken. The man begins to speak and says that he'll fire someone from the company the next day, ironically speaking about the man that he used to be.

One big reason for the film's title is because The Strangers had removed the sun from sight. Nightfall is always present but no one seems to notice. The citizens drone around in their meaningless jobs from day to day (pun intended) and The Strangers follow their every movement like rats in a maze.

What an imagination this film has! Alex Proyas (director of The Crow and I, Robot) is the visionary genius behind this film. It was co-written by Lem Dobbs (Kafka, The Limey) and David S. Goyer (Blade, Batman Begins). The film works on many different levels. Multiple viewings only enrich the atmosphere and experience of the film even more.

Recently a director's cut had been issued on DVD and Blu-ray. The director's cut is 15 minutes longer than the theatrical version; the intro monologue from Dr. Schreber is cut out and some of the soundtrack has been removed from the background of select scenes and replaced with sounds of buildings being “tuned”. The original special effects in the film were magnificent in general, and they were never placed there for the sake of having special effects. They were minimal and they assisted the storytelling. The director's cut has the film treated for high definition and the special effects were tweaked as well. A few more special effects were added and, somehow, it makes the final climactic showdown in the film even more epic.

I love this film and have viewed both versions of it multiple times. I have also studied it frame by frame. I love the reoccurring motif of a spiral: when Inspector Bumstead falls asleep at his accordion, a spiral of milk spins in his coffee; when Murdoch inspects the subway system routes he notices that they lead in spirals; spirals are cut into the flesh of "Murdoch's victims", the serial killer version anyway; and when The Strangers inspect what aspects of the city to change their miniature model of the city is spiral shaped. Every little thing that can occupy time and space does so meaningfully, in every frame and without waste. This is a perfect film and I believe that it will be remembered for a very long time to come.

Blindness (2008)

Director Fernando Meirelles reached critical fame with his film City of God (2002) and his career had continued brilliantly with the film adaptation of John Le Carre’s novel The Constant Gardener (2005). Now, based on the novel by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago and a screenplay written by Canada’s Don McKellar, Blindness, Fernando Meirelles' latest film is a film I hated the longer it went on screen.

I issue a spoiler warning right now.

A Japanese man turns blind while awaiting a green light at a cross-walk. Then, a random pedestrian (Don McKellar), kindly gets into the Japanese man’s car and drives him to his home. But after the drop off he steals the Japanese man’s car. The Japanese man, then decides to see an optometrist, played by Mark Ruffalo, regarding his recent loss of vision.

*Note* usually when one goes blind it means that one ceases to be able to see, therefore nothing is seen but darkness. But the Japanese man sees all white. *wink wink*

The blindness, apparently, is infectious and therefore the car thief, the Japanese man’s wife, the optometrist and his wife (Julianne Moore), and all the rest of the patients in the optometry clinic, who’d come in contact with one another at one point all turn blind, as well. So far so good.

A quarantine is then issued in the city. Those suffering from the recent epidemic of magical blindness pack their bags and are dropped off at a vacant prison. The optometrist’s wife, however can still see. Her character is the only character in the film that’s still able to see because from that moment on she becomes the audience’s eyes and ears. But there’s also a big problem with that type of storytelling which is that because she doesn’t seem to be in every scene throughout the entirety of the film, her relevance drops down almost to zero. Her character technically doesn’t exist. I hadn’t read the novel but I guarantee that in it she’s either also blind or she doesn’t exist.

In the prison, no one attends to the “prisoners” (I will use this term from now on), for fear of spreading the infection to other doctors and military personnel that they might come in contact with. And because everyone in the prison is blind, they no longer care about their appearances and half of the prisoners waltz around in the buff, defecate, and urinate in every available corner and at all times.

The Doctor (actually billed as Doctor) and his wife keep their little secret to themselves because if they were to reveal it to the others and to, God forbid, those in charge they might be able to find a cure; or not. I’m not a wizard and I didn’t create this magic form of blindness.

Time moves slowly and more prisoners are loaded into the facility until all three wards are occupied. In comes The Bartender, played with terrific conviction by Gael Garcia Bernal. He hears from Doctor (Ruffalo) that they take turns burying the corpses that pile up outside in their ward. Bartender objects to Doctor being the boss of the ward and as he pulls out a gun he decrees monarchy on the entire prison.

Now here’s where I began to hate the film.

Everybody in Ward 3 automatically agrees with everything that Bartender has to say and he rules the prison with an iron fist. He confiscates food from the entire prison and sells it back to Ward 1 for whatever objects they’re carrying. And after all the money and jewelry is disbursed another week goes by, but the prisoners must eventually eat. So Bartender decides to borrow a few women for a single evening. That evening, nine women are raped and another is killed.

Where is Julianne Moore in all this? Well, she just sits back and watches everything come down hard for fear that her sense of sight will be discovered, which, again doesn’t make sense because the prisoners can definitely use her ability to see in a positive manner.

Oh, Bartender also rapes her, which in turn makes them mortal enemies.

Moore eventually stabs Bartender in the neck with a pair of scissors and a giant war is raged between Wards 1 and 3 (whatever happened to ward 2?) Also a fire erupts at one point and the film goes bonkers even further.

But something crucial happens in the end which dictates to the audience that the premise of the film is that “the blindness is an allegory for human beings' innate moral blindness, the capacity for prejudice, selfishness, violence and willful indifference due to the inability to share another's point of view”. My take on the premise of the film is that “white” is purity in and of itself. An act of God grants one man the ability to “truly see” and it infects others because everyone has the potential to be good. In turn, we lose faith in ourselves and in others.

The aforementioned details a great idea for a potentially great story or film and I believe that the book spoke of it, but I could not find that allegory within this film and I don’t see why the blindness had eventually wore off because the film’s main characters do not become better people; some remain the same and most others become even worse people, but mostly they choose to live as blind people and accept who they have become.

I did not enjoy the story’s concept or the film’s cinematography and I grew restless and annoyed as it went on because the characters depicted in this film don’t act like real people would. They choose to be disorganized and lazy and when a single man’s decided to rule them all with an iron fist (or in this case a gun) they simply give up.

Many others have tried to convince me that ‘this is only a movie and that movies do not mirror real life’ and I agree with that entirely. Even documentaries are just media inspired representations of others’ interpretations; they’re edited fictionalized accounts that are based on non-fictional stories, concepts, and personalities. Realism and reality are like bananas and radios: one’s a food and the other is an electronic device and they have nothing in common except that everybody knows what they are and what they’re designed for. When a screenplay causes audiences to think, dialogue is riddled with metaphors, and the happenings are visually symbolic, the screenplay presents to the audience recognizable traits that are found in us all and teaches us lessons that make sense. In many films the representation is accurate. But I hate this film because it stamps ideals that are wrong and presumes to know what the human condition really is all about. So, to those who read this review I recommend you watch the classic The Human Condition trilogy.

Let’s hope that Fernando Meirelles picks up a better script next time.