Blindness

This is the story of the total breakdown of society following a natural disaster, an unexplained epidemic of blindness that affects an entire city (or nation, it’s not clear). People start committing every sort of despicable actions, but are also capable of acts of generosity unheard of before the epidemic.



Obviously, the story is very relevant today, when we think of possible consequences of a possible mutation of the H1N1 (swine) flu to be very deadly (like the Influenza of 1929).
But in general, I liked the story back when I read the book in 2001, and yesterday when I watched the movie, because firstly, it gives an amazing example for what humanity, leadership, team work, and responsibility are, secondly, my grandparents were among the very few survivals of the Holocaust and the story describes similar situations to what they had to handle with.
Maybe the most important reasons is that, unfortunately, I believe that our society is still blind in many ways.

I recommend.

* The movie is very good, but if you can, try to read the book itself.
http://www.amazon.com/Blindness-Harvest-Book-Jose-Saramago/dp/0156007754