Thursday 15 March 2007

Perfect Companion or Corrupted Adaptation?

Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener; City of God) is directing the film adaptation of José Saramago’s novel Ensaio Sobre A Cegueira (Blindness). José Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998 and is one of Portugal’s best-known writers. For those who don’t know, Blindness is set in an unnamed city inexplicably plunged into an epidemic of blindness.
I don’t know what to make of this. Should I be happy to see one of my favourite books being adapted by a director that, until now, hasn’t made a bad film? Or should I be offended that such a masterpiece should be subjected to a vulgar dissection by the Hollywood money-grabbing machine?
Daniel Graig and Julianne Moore are confirmed to star as the main characters’ and I confess this casting decision already confuses me. 007 as a blind Ophthalmologist? Maybe Julianne Moore will be able to bring a much needed human sensibility to the story…
Let’s just hope this won’t be another catastrophe like Saramago’s last film adaptation ‘A Jangada De Pedra’ (The Stone Raft). This adaptation again demonstrates how a brilliant book can be completely butchered by the talentless idiots who called themselves filmmakers.
It would be a great pleasure to make Blindness enter my ‘Perfect Companion’ section (and a great honour to both Saramago & Meirelles I'm sure). I guess we’ll have to wait till next year to find out. Meanwhile I suggest a reading or re-reading of one of the most brilliant written books of the 20th Century.




P.S.- The English Edition cover didn't appeal to me so I left it out.There...

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