Blindness (2008) The Movie

In 1995, the Portuguese writer Jose Saramago wrote a novel entitled Blindness in his unique style of writing that uses punctuation sparingly and often times his sentences and paragraphs can extend for pages. His novels are also unique in the aspect that his characters have no names and he writes allegorically about the human condition, one of my favorite topics. He finally agreed to have his novel Blindness made into a movie in 2008 under the condition that it follow the setting of his novel in an unknown city and the characters have no names.
The movie was amazing to watch and I had to keep reminding myself of the author's intent, to explain to us his vision of the human condition and not in a literal fashion. In my opinion, the characters did not go literally blind by some mysterious infectious illness that suddenly struck the population of this city, but it was symbolic of the blinders we put on in our daily lives. I feel that the wife of the doctor was not blind because she was aware in her life, thought for herself, and did not believe everything she was told, she seemed more aware of human behavior, and the cruelty that exists in the world. The plot of the story shows how fear and lack of education can lead to a total breakdown in society, violence, lack of compassion for others and oneself. The movie is well made, great acting, and the location could be any city in the world, pointing out to us that this could happen anywhere in the world because after all is said and done, we are all human beings despite our different races and cultures. When it comes down to survival, the human condition shows its ugly side. I have commented on this in the past, if people are willing to trample and kill others to get into a store to buy unnecessary things because it is on sale, what would happen in a food and medicine shortage? This movie spells it out pretty clearly and graphically. This movie is not for the faint of heart and remind yourself it is an allegory.
Here is a clip of the movie.