Fernando Meirelles is a filmmaker who likes the Apocalypse. In his CITY OF GOD, his hyper-active film set in the Brazilian favelas, violence was depicted with the speed of a music video montage. In his new film, BLINDNESS, he adapts the allegorical novel by

Nobel prize-winning Portuguese writer Jose Saramango. The film was the opening night film of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The film is set in the near future. The city is hit with a sudden epidemic of “white blindness.” People lose their sight, seeing only what they describe as a milky-white light. A Japanese businessman is hit first, as he drives his car. As he staggers from the car, it is stolen, though the thief goes blind too. He ends up in the offices of an ophthalmologist, who then loses his sight the next morning. Only the doctor’s wife, played by Juliane Moore, remains inexplicably unaffected.

The blind are soon herded into camps, and left to fend for themselves. Who will survive soon becomes the dominant issue as the camp divides into factions, food is hoarded and traded. Toward the end of the film, the blinded prisoners escape, only to find themselves amid the horrid devastation and violence of a city ripped apart by hunger, devastation and violence. The film ends on a hopeful note.

It’s all very meaningful, pregnant with metaphor and very beautifully shot by Cesar Charlone. It’s also boring as hell.

I didn’t read the Saramango novel and so can’t judge its greatness, but as great filmmakers know, the best films are made from cheap, rather second-rate novels, and perhaps Saramango’s BLINDNESS is simply too literary to work as a film. Virtually every situation seems contrived yet its themes are rather simplistic; given an apocalyptic situation, humanity quickly degenerates – I would only submit that such degeneration is also possible without the accompanying apocalypse.

I found the Iranian film, BLIND WOMEN FILMMAKERS OF TEHRAN much more profound and moving than Mireilles’ pretentious mess.

Mohammad Shirvani is an independent documentary filmmaker in Iran. One night, he had a dream. He dreamt that he became blind. Then he began thinking of how blind people related to his chosen medium, film. He began running workshops for blind women in Tehran, teaching them the filmmaking process. Originally, 200 women applied for admission to the workshop. He chose fifteen, and then a final seven.

These seven women were then asked to create short films, which form the substance of the feature film, BLIND WOMEN FILMMAKERS OF TEHRAN. The short films range from the tragic to inspiring. CONVERSATION WITH THE WALL, directed by Sara Parto, tells the story of a young blind woman in Tehran who is totally self-sufficient. She does her own shopping, she cooks, plays music and even does sewing. A more tragic take is the second episode, DEATH OF THE WITNESS, by Shokufeh Davarnezhad. Her film is the story of a sighted woman who goes to an ophthalmologist whom she has not seen for many years. In the intervening years, he has gone mad. He injects anti-biotics into her eyes and  causes her blindness.

Family dynamics are the subject of the episode GOODNIGHT BY Naghmeh Afiyat. It is the story of a young woman who is married to a fully-sighted man. Her film is a message to her husband and to the rest of the world. For the fifteen years they’ve been married, she has been on the listening end of their relationship. Now she wants the world to hear HER through her film...

Milos Stehlik’s commentaries reflect his own views and not necessarily those of Facets Multimedia, Worldview or Chicago Public Radio.