In one scene from the latest film by Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Constant Gardender), the lead character (played wonderfully–did you expect anything else?–by Julianne Moore) descends into darkness in search of the most basic of human needs: food. The darkness is actually the basement storage of a grocery store. The power has been out in the city for weeks, and everyone has been forced to fend for themselves. Why? Because everyone is blind, that’s why. No one knows how it happened, but thousands (if not hundreds of thousands worldwide) have lost their sight and are wandering the streets, directionless and without hope. Except our unnamed heroine. Continue reading Blindness, or: afraid of the dark