Where's a zombie when you need one?

Blindness-Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore





SEE?




Ah, those wacky Canadian-Brazilian-Japanese filmmakers with their wacky literary adaptations. Let's take "Blindness." Hmmm. No zombies in this "world-gone-wrong" flick but same basic premise. People lose their s**t when the slightest little thing goes wrong like being unable to see anything but a milky white film in front of your eyes. A nation of whiners, I say. So, to control the problem, you start rounding up the afflicted (such as an ironically blind opthamologist known only as Doctor (Mark Ruffalo) and his miraculously still seeing wife (Julianne Moore). )Next, you house them in abandoned mental institutions (insert heavy foreshadowing of the breakdown of society here.) And then it begins. People walk around naked 'cause hey, who's looking? Well, Julianne Moore is but the blind people don't know that. (You know, people don't tend to abandon their clothes in zombie movies. Score one for zombie movies.) Insert previously mentioned naked persons having sex in feces filled hallways. Hey, they weren't born blind. Nobody taught them how to locate a toilet in the dark (or through a milky white film.)



The good times just keep on comin' though. Once mild-mannered bartender turned narcissistic sociopath (Gael Garcia Bernal) enters the picture, we get a whole new movie. We get to see what people truly become like when the chips are not only down but being hoarded by a crazy person and his gang. Women are bartered for food (only heterosexuals need apply at this funny farm please.) I guess you'll have to excuse me if I find this sort of deconstruction of humankind to be a luxury of comfortably situated Western minds. For those who live 24/7 in a region where clean water is scarce and electricity (if it exists) may only come on for an hour a day, a film like this one may err on the side of hysteria. Wacky Canadian-Brazilian-Japanese filmmakers.




Now, maybe I'm being too practical here but there are actual blind people in this mental ward who were born blind (or became blind before the epidemic.) They probably were taught the skills necessary to survive in a world without sight. Surely, these blind people could assist the newly blind people with keeping the power running, the water flowing, etc. I'm not talking about flying a DC-10 or anything here but c'mon. Would we be completely incapable of keeping society running at a basic level? Just cause of a few million blind people. Reeeaallly?! Okay. I probably wouldn't want them cooking either.



SHOP.



Guns and ammo. 'Cause blind people should have those items if they're gonna be forced to live in a hellhole mental ward with an armed sociopath. Okay. Maybe not. But seeing-eye dogs were not an option apparently. Oooooh! I know! A can opener. (Not electric. No sense in that. There's nobody left to run the electricity as.) Very handy when you make your escape from the hellhole mental ward and start raiding those annoyingly overpriced specialty grocery stores with the rest of the blind people who did not think to order a manual can opener prior to the epidemic.



EAT.




Anything. Seriously. The way this movie was going I was pretty sure the blind were going to start digging up corpses and chowing down which would have provided me with my longed for zombie movie atmosphere. However, it didn't come to that and armed with my trusty manual can opener (or Swiss Army Knife for the pros), I could get by on canned food for awhile. However, up until the guards go blind, they do serve the blind inmates institutional food which resembles a Swanson's frozen dinner. Remember those? Anybody? Guess not. Well, they still exist apparently in the form of Swanson's Classics. So, if you're feeling a deep seated need to eat a meal in a plastic microwaveable tray, check out your local supermarket for the original "TV dinner." It might be best to close your eyes and imagine yourself in the mental ward though. That'll bring out the flavor for sure.