Blindness

Blindness (Fernando Meirelles, 2008) - C-

This has to be the most jury-rigged Lord of the Flies scenario ever devised. The government locks a bunch of newly blind people in a prison, with little food, no assistance, no sanitation, no communication with the outside world, and they descend into chaos and disorder? No kidding. And how, exactly, do things go downhill? Well, half of the quarantined suddenly become evil. Really? That's the great insight into human nature? By the time it turned out that the illness had just come to teach everyone a lesson -- LIVE AS A FAMILY, DAMN YOU! DON'T STEAL CARS! -- I was long past taking anything seriously. The interesting question that the movie doesn't remotely explore is why the fictional government react the way it does: just human selfishness? Or something else?