Out of sight

Don McKellar on his wondrous
apocalyptic adaptation Blindness

by MATTHEW HAYS

Don McKellar is getting a reputation as someone obsessed with the end of the world as we know it. And it’s understandable, given his filmography. In 1998, he wrote, directed and starred in Last Night, a film about what an ensemble of Torontonians choose to do in their final hours before the world comes to a crashing halt. It was a fierce first feature, a strange apocalyptic entry many still regard as one of the best Canadian films ever made.

Now he’s back in the doomsday business with Blindness, a film directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Constant Gardener) from a screenplay McKellar adapted from the celebrated novel by José Saramago. The plot has a virus spreading throughout the inhabitants of an unnamed city, causing them to go blind. Since there’s no cure and doctors can’t figure out what’s happening, there’s widespread panic and an effort to quarantine those who’ve lost their vision.

Mark Ruffalo plays a good doctor who himself loses his sight; Julianne Moore plays his dedicated wife, who is immune to the virus but pretends to be blind so that she can accompany him into detainment. As might be expected, when anarchy breaks out, the authorities all but disappear and those stuck in the gulag are forced to fend for themselves. Gael Garcia Bernal plays an evil thug who is soon lording over the blind, hoarding the goods for himself and his nasty entourage. Meirelles cast McKellar in a funny supporting performance as a selfish cad.

“I first read Blindness 10 years ago, while I was promoting Last Night,” McKellar says, acknowledging the thematic connection. “I guess I was on an apocalyptic track. I don’t normally think about movies while reading. But from the very first page, I thought this would make an amazing opening to a movie.”

McKellar and producer Niv Fichman then went about wooing Saramago, an author who had repeatedly said no to filmmakers who bid on the film rights to his lauded novel. Numerous Hollywood producers had been pining for the rights, and actors had expressed interest in buying the book, including Whoopi Goldberg. As it turns out, the very fact that Fichman and McKellar didn’t bring up money actually worked in their favour; a number of Hollywood producers had attempted to win Saramago over with higher and higher bids, something that apparently simply put off the author.

FUSING UTOPIA WITH DYSTOPIA

Blindness opened at Cannes this spring, and then had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, where some critics didn’t seem to get its smart take on the end-ofthe- world movie. Blindness is unique precisely because it manages to be a film about both a utopia and a dystopia at once. “That’s one of the things I really like about the book—it’s not actually a cynical novel. Horrible things go on, but there’s an optimism and humanism to it too. I wanted that to come through in the film—it’s about rebuilding a society, about people finding new models of family and government.”

EYES ON THE PRIZE: McKellar

McKellar confirms that after 28 Days Later (and its sequel 28 Weeks Later) and Children of Men, he’s concerned that audiences might be apocalypsed out. “These end-of-theworld scenarios are a cyclical thing. The people behind Children of Men actually tried to get the rights to Blindness, so I think Saramago’s book influenced them.”

And while Blindness may have certain set-up similarities to those films, apocalypse aficionados will see that it has its own distinct take on the motif. It was among the very best films at September’s Toronto Film Fest, joining another Canadian film, Pontypool, a lowbudget zombie film that enthralled audiences.

Blindness also represents a look to the future of cinema itself. With backing from Canada, Japan and Brazil, a Brazilian director, a Canadian screenwriter and an international cast, the feature is an excellent example of a copro that actually works. “Co-pros get a bad rap from a lot of journalists,” notes McKellar. “But I don’t think they understand them. I see a lot of hope in the model. We had complete control with Blindness.

“People think it demands compromise. It’s the opposite—with the studios, that’s when you lose control. Most indie films now have to be co-pros. You know, Blindness just opened in Brazil, where it’s at the top of the box office charts. When was the last time a Canadian film opened big in Brazil?

The idea of transcending borders that way is very exciting to me.”

BLINDNESS OPENS THIS FRIDAY, OCT. 3

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