When chaos hits, no one is morally or philosophically unscathed. Such is the moral of "Blindness," based on Portuguese author Jose Saramago's 1995 best seller and adapted to the screen by Brazil's Fernando Meirelles ("City of God").
The chaos in this case is a sudden epidemic of blindness that strikes an entire city, leaving the afflicted and the government equally helpless to cope. From the opening scene of the very first victim, "Man in a Car" (played by Yusuke Iseya), the story gloomily prophesizes that when the chips are down, people will behave like crooks or animals. At a busy intersection, the Man finds his vision awash in a milky white light — he can't see anymore. A seemingly friendly passerby (Don McKellar, who's also the screenwriter for the film) drives him home, only to steal his car. A few minutes later he, too, is struck by blindness.
There's a certain meanness to Meirelles' gaze that's rather an oversimplification of Saramago's original, philosophical tone; as he paints this apocalyptic fable, there's a distinct I-told-you-so smugness running like a sneaky undercurrent beneath the surface moralizing. And there is a lot of moralizing, tempered with not so subtle references to the general state of human living, starting with the overriding theme: We're all blind.