Blind Shaft (Mang Jing)

Song Jinming (Li Yixiang) and his friend Tang Chaoyang (Wang Shuangbao, "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress") work the corruption of the new capitalistic China to their advantage. Promising a lucrative mining job to a desperate man willing to pose as one of their relatives, Song and Tang murder him, make it look like a company accident and blackmail the boss who is inevitably covering up safety violations. They're giving everyone the "Blind Shaft." Laura: Producer/director/writer/coeditor Li Yang uses his background in documentaries to make a strong statement on the disassociative effects of capitalism and the horrors of the private mining industry in contemporary China. This 2003 Berlinale Silver Bear winner was banned in its home country, but its moral message is globally relevant. After bilking Boss Huang (Bao Zhenjiang) of thirty thousand juan (about a few thousand dollars) for the death of a family man, Song and Tang celebrate in the city, visiting a brothel where they drink and sing "Long Live Socialism' with a karaoke machine ('Hey you hick, the words changed ages ago.' one hooker mocks). The next day Tang zeroes in on a naive 16 year-old, Yuan Fengming (Wang Baoqiang), who wants to find his father and go back to school. Sing has misgivings and becomes spooked about the boy's resemblance to their last victim, who also had the same surname. Tang prevails and the threesome travel to a new mine and present Fengming as Song's nephew, but Fengming changes the dynamics of Song and Tang's partnership and their connected fates take unexpected paths. Li Yang's film is a kind of realist fable, at once a record of dehumanizing conditions and the tale of a holy fool (the film was based on the novel "Sacred Wood" and its events have some basis in fact). Dwarfing his protagonists against vast, bleak gray landscapes of winding roads, Li Yang creates an almost photo negative image of Kiarostami's "The Wind Will Carry Us" in both look and feel. The mines are little better than Gulags (Song and Tang act like soldiers on military leave when they travel to town) where workers descend into hot, cramped conditions (a hell representing man's basest instincts, perhaps?) for long shifts. While Song and Tang try to subvert the system, Fengming represents the work ethic, studying on his off hours in anticipation of schooling that will improve his lot. Wang Baoqiang projects an appealing innocence and unshakeable values (he's horrified when Tang buys him a session with a hooker) which Li Yixiang's Song responds to - after the initial spooking, more protective, nurturing tendencies rise to the fore. Wang Shuangbao is Baoqiang's steady opposite - cynical and self-serving throughout (when Fengming borrows money from Song to give to a begging student, Tang declares the beggar's claims fraudulent - the pot calling the kettle black). 'China has a shortage of everything but people.' the trio are informed by Boss Wang (Nie Weihua). "Blind Shaft" illustrates how those people are dehumanized when forced to compete for the mighty juan yet hopefully posits that goodness ultimately triumphs over greed. A-

Laura's Review: A-

Producer/director/writer/coeditor Li Yang uses his background in documentaries to make a strong statement on the disassociative effects of capitalism and the horrors of the private mining industry in contemporary China. This 2003 Berlinale Silver Bear winner was banned in its home country, but its moral message is globally relevant. After bilking Boss Huang (Bao Zhenjiang) of thirty thousand juan (about a few thousand dollars) for the death of a family man, Song and Tang celebrate in the city, visiting a brothel where they drink and sing "Long Live Socialism' with a karaoke machine ('Hey you hick, the words changed ages ago.' one hooker mocks). The next day Tang zeroes in on a naive 16 year-old, Yuan Fengming (Wang Baoqiang), who wants to find his father and go back to school. Sing has misgivings and becomes spooked about the boy's resemblance to their last victim, who also had the same surname. Tang prevails and the threesome travel to a new mine and present Fengming as Song's nephew, but Fengming changes the dynamics of Song and Tang's partnership and their connected fates take unexpected paths. Li Yang's film is a kind of realist fable, at once a record of dehumanizing conditions and the tale of a holy fool (the film was based on the novel "Sacred Wood" and its events have some basis in fact). Dwarfing his protagonists against vast, bleak gray landscapes of winding roads, Li Yang creates an almost photo negative image of Kiarostami's "The Wind Will Carry Us" in both look and feel. The mines are little better than Gulags (Song and Tang act like soldiers on military leave when they travel to town) where workers descend into hot, cramped conditions (a hell representing man's basest instincts, perhaps?) for long shifts. While Song and Tang try to subvert the system, Fengming represents the work ethic, studying on his off hours in anticipation of schooling that will improve his lot. Wang Baoqiang projects an appealing innocence and unshakeable values (he's horrified when Tang buys him a session with a hooker) which Li Yixiang's Song responds to - after the initial spooking, more protective, nurturing tendencies rise to the fore. Wang Shuangbao is Baoqiang's steady opposite - cynical and self-serving throughout (when Fengming borrows money from Song to give to a begging student, Tang declares the beggar's claims fraudulent - the pot calling the kettle black). 'China has a shortage of everything but people.' the trio are informed by Boss Wang (Nie Weihua). "Blind Shaft" illustrates how those people are dehumanized when forced to compete for the mighty juan yet hopefully posits that goodness ultimately triumphs over greed.

Robin's Review: B+

Director Fernando Meirelles and scripter Don McKellar, adapting Jose Saramago's novel, tells a modern parable about the disintegration of society. As the 'white sickness' claims more and more victims, the quarantine wards in an old asylum begin to fill up. Those with sight on the outside are fast abandoning the care of the victims, leaving the blind to fend for themselves. Man being man, the inmates are divided between the compassionate and the power hungry greedy. The story, although a little to long for the material, is a first-rate thriller that builds slowly as sightlessness strikes the first victim and he seeks help. Things accelerate as the next victims are hit by the sickness and the seeds of panic are sown as their numbers rapidly increase. The fear of the sighted falling prey to the blinding infection forces the government to uphold the strict isolation policy ­ with deadly force if necessaary. And it becomes necessary. The chaos and breakdown in society within the blind victims' prison culminates in a battle between good and bad that ends in a devastating fire. The calamity frees Moore and the small group first joined by their disease into the world once again. What they find is a repeat of the chaos and breakdown they saw within their prison but at a far bigger scale. Meirelles and company have created a stylish, scary chronicle of the disintegration of society that is an allegory of the AIDS crisis ­ a diseease descends upon us and it cannot be stopped. Throw in blindness as the epidemic and the affliction causes widespread panic. Or, is it the panic that causes the spreading blindness? The overwhelming despair of the plight is palpable, as is the tiny glimmer of hope in the end. The huge cast is led with convincing nuance by Julianne Moore as the Doctor's Wife and only one with sight. Her initial desire is to help her husband but circumstance places awesome responsibility and she must care for many. Moore shows the physical and psychological strain that steadily builds as things go spiraling down. Mark Ruffalo as the Doctor, Alice Braga as the Woman with the Dark Glasses, Danny Glover as the Man with the Black Eye Patch, Don McKellar as the Thief, Yusuke Iseya as the First Blind Man and Gael Garcia as the tyrannical King of Ward Three lead the unsighted multitudes, giving individuality and dimension to their characters. Techs are top notch. Cesar Charlones stylized lensing uses blinding flashes of white to convey the rapid spread of the disease. Soft, out of focus camera work visibly shows the affliction with affective fright. Editing (Daniel Rezende), production design (Deirdre Bowen and Susie Figgis), original music (Marco Antonio Guimaraes), art direction (Joshua de Cartier) and the rest of the capable crew do a fine job is showing man's descent into hell. A bit of judicial tightening was needed, is my only complaint. "Blindness" is a thriller, horror yarn and character study that brings to my mind "The Lord of the Flies" with its feel of a societal shipwreck that divides the world into its most primitive elements of good against evil.