Mud Songs

A disease breaks out that causes mass blindness in an unnamed city. The blind are quarantined, left to fend for themselves in a hospital that’s surrounded by guards who shoot anyone who tries to get away. I kept expecting more from the story than Lord of the Flies in a mental institution for the blind. Written by Don McKellar, Blindness is based on the novel of the same name by José Saramago. If you’ve read the novel, you might get more out of the movie than I did because you’ll know more about each character’s motivation than what’s presented in the movie. But from what I saw on the screen, I couldn’t get into it. It fell just a little too short for me.

Last Night is written and directed by Don McKellar. It’s about the end of the world and how various people in Toronto decide to live out their last night on earth. Some people want to have sex, or pray, or be with family, or commit suicide before the sun explodes (though we’re never told why the earth is coming to an end). Others want to be alone. The film moves along at a calm, quiet, reflective pace that allows the audience to feel for these people who are facing not just the end of their own lives, but the extinction of all life on the planet. Although the main character is too intellectual to engender much sympathy, the final scene makes up for it. Last Night is an usual but memorable end-of-the-world movie, one that might leave you thinking.