- Title: FRANCE: Apocalyptic Brazilian movie "Blindness" opens Cannes film festival
- Date: 22nd May 2008
- Summary: CANNES, FRANCE (MAY 14, 2008) (REUTERS) (*** FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY ***) ALICE BRAGA AND DANNY GLOVER SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS PHOTOGRAPHERS AND CAMERA CREWS 'BLINDNESS' CAST MEMBERS BEING PHOTOGRAPHED PHOTOGRAPHERS AND CAMERA CREWS ALICE BRAGA AND WITH DIRECTOR FERNANDO MEIRELLES (GOOD SHOT) JULIANE MOORE SIGNING AUTOGRAPH
- Embargoed: 6th June 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- Country: France
- Reuters ID: LVA6MOXNL5HSFO3BL1YN78XF696R
- Story Text: Brazilian movie "Blindness" brought apocalyptic visions of society in meltdown to Cannes on Wednesday (May 14), and the director conceded his grim take on humanity was an odd choice to open the glitzy film festival.
It was a downbeat start to 12 days of movies, interviews, publicity stunts and late-night revelry in the Riviera resort, which prides itself on championing tough cinema as much as rolling out the red carpet for Hollywood royalty.
Directed by Brazil's Fernando Meirelles, of "City of God"
renown, English-language "Blindness" is an adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning writer Jose Saramago's novel of the same name, and tells the story of a plague of blindness sweeping the world.
Julianne Moore plays a doctor's wife, who, like the film's audience, is able to see the death, cruelty, degradation as well as the dignity around her, and who gradually becomes aware of the responsibility her unique position brings.
"We consider ourselves so strong and sophisticated and solid, and then one thing goes and everything collapses. And so the examples that you mentioned - SARS, we are really living in a little - how you say in English, skating on thin ice, right, anything can happen and everything goes,"
Meirelles said.
With a Brazilian director and a diverse cast and with the film set in an unnamed city, the film is a very international affair.
"I was very, very excited working on this international production, I mean that's something that is going to be happening more and more. I mean, there were only three Americans in the cast, which is so great, you know - in the whole film, the whole crew and everything - three Americans, me, Danny and Mark, and one Mexican. But how exciting to be in a truly, truly international film," said Moore.
Much of the film is set in an abandoned asylum where those stricken by the contagious "White Sickness" -- so called because the blind see white, not black -- are locked up by increasingly panicked authorities.
A workable system of living despite the squalor soon breaks down when one prisoner, played by Mexico's Gael Garcia Bernal, takes the law into his own hands.
Atrocities are committed amid the anarchy, and when the prisoners break free, Moore finds the whole city has fared little better.
Taking on the role of a blind person was a real challenge said Bernal.
"You acquire a different physicality altogether, you know, even your voice changes. I don't know, something, the way that you, obviously the way you look at things and the way we're used to see other peoples eyes to understand what they're trying to say, becomes - sort of non-existant in a way, or becomes another thing. So it throws you out of place all the time, you know, it's something, it's a situation that gets you in an extreme situation every single moment," said Bernal.
The movie officially premieres on Wednesday evening. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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