Reserving Judgement (Day)

Roland Emmerich of Independence Day, The Day after Tomorrow and Godzilla fame brings another doomsday magnum opus that seems to be pieced together from all three, with a few dollops from say Volcano and the likes. 2012 starts well and the heightening agitation of Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) as events start unfolding that give credence to barely believable theories, and the ame along with the sense of urgency of young scientist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are quite well depicted. In fact it is quite remarkable that the failure of this movie is identical to that of The Day After Tomorrow - a lack of believability in the emotional content - beyond the fact that Jackson Curtis does appear to be attached to his kids, every other interpersonal relationship in the movie for some reason appears contrived - and this is just why all of the one hour or so oard the ark is quite excruciating. In summary, it will be difficult for Emmerich/ Hollywood to keep attracting audiences to these doomsday sagas with ever-improving special effects alone - the movie needs to hold together with genunie human emotion - the rest is just programming

12/20

Society without Vision

If you have not read the novel by Jose Saramago (and I have not) it is difficult to be prepared for a movie like Blindness. In a regular orderly urban society, a man gets afflicted by a sudden attack of white blindness. So does his wife, and all those who get in touch with him - notably an eye doctor. The doctor's wife is the only one who miraclously escapes getting affected - and gives an increasingly large group leadership through the repression of state confinement and a complete degeneration of law and order within that confinement. The group moves from the hopelessness brought about by individual tyranny, to freedom and the order that voluntary and symbiotic coexistence brings, even in an outside world where all familiar institutions, including things as disparate as electricity and family - have ceased to exist. Perhaps it is because each individual in the milieu is dealing with his or her own personal tragedy, that there is no place for collective uprising or protest outside of a world where the ward defined the physical boundaries of groups of people. Blindness is about forms that society takes when faced with crisis - the disorder that stems from individual hubris and inevitably leads to ruin, and the empathy and coexistence that raises us above mere animals. A remarkable movie, though difficult to watch at times.