The new trailer for “Blindness,” José Saramago’s 1995 apocalyptic-like story of a worldwide epidemic robbing people of their sight is online and it looks tentatively pretty powerful and engrossing. Directed by Fernando Meirelles (“City of God,” “The Constant Gardener,”) the picture was the opening film at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this May and opens in North America on September 19.
The adaptation written by Canadian filmmaker, Don Mckellar, the film stars Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gael García Bernal, Alica Braga and Julianne Moore as the only person immune to the epidemic of blindness. The official synopsis:
A city is ravaged by an epidemic of instant “white blindness”. Those first afflicted are quarantined by the authorities in an abandoned mental hospital where the newly created “society of the blind” quickly breaks down. Criminals (Garcia Bernal) and the physically powerful prey upon the weak, hording the meager food rations and committing horrific acts. There is however one eyewitness to the nightmare. A woman (Julianne Moore) whose sight is unaffected by the plague follows her afflicted husband (Mark Ruffalo) to quarantine. There, keeping her sight a secret, she guides seven strangers who have become, in essence, a family. She leads them out of quarantine and onto the ravaged streets of the city, which has seen all vestiges of civilization crumble. Their voyage is fraught with danger, yet their survival and ultimate redemption reflect the tenacity and depth of the human spirit.
This looks pretty decent and Miramax hasn’t had a hit in a long time, so maybe they’re due. Our memory seems to recall this getting decent, but not amazing reviews at Cannes.