I simply cannot sit here and see so many people give this film so many poor reviews and say nothing to defend it! This movie was excellent, one of the best films I've seen in some time, and left me thinking about it for days.
For those of you intellectual types, note the common complaints from all these negative reviews: 1. Things weren't explained well - Why could the doctor's wife see? What was the disease? Why did the Japanese man's vision return? None of that was explained because none of it is important! This is why Hollywood believes they need to spoon feed every little detail into their audiences, because so many people need everything explained! The "white sickness", its causes, etc, simply aren't the point of this film, so they never need to be explained.
2. It wasn't realistic! - LOL, this was an entirely fictional city! So many people try to compare how the government in the film dealt with the quarantine to how their own governments would deal with the quarantine, and then declare the film to be unrealistic. How do they know how this fictional government would treat the ill? What makes you think this movie was even set in any real country at all? How do you know it was even a democratic country? It seemed almost a dictatorship to me.
3. It was pointless - The people saying this are the ones who are truly blind! This movie made me realize that I was blind as well. By the end of the film, I looked at my family in a new way, I even found myself wishing I could have what the final seven people had in the end. It seems like it would take something just as terrifying and severe as a real "white sickness" to make most people wake up and truly SEE what they are missing!
The point? If you can think for yourself and don't need every detail explained and spoon fed to you, if you can watch a film for its literary value and not expect every single film to be perfectly realistic (I mean, what did these same reviewers say about Lord of the Rings? Unrealistic? Sigh), if you can read between the lines and enjoy finding metaphor and symbolism in a film or book... well, then, trust me, you will LOVE this movie! If you aren't the above type... Well then... Skip this movie, you won't get it, it will just upset and frustrate you, and make you leave unfair negative reviews.
For those of you intellectual types, note the common complaints from all these negative reviews: 1. Things weren't explained well - Why could the doctor's wife see? What was the disease? Why did the Japanese man's vision return? None of that was explained because none of it is important! This is why Hollywood believes they need to spoon feed every little detail into their audiences, because so many people need everything explained! The "white sickness", its causes, etc, simply aren't the point of this film, so they never need to be explained.
2. It wasn't realistic! - LOL, this was an entirely fictional city! So many people try to compare how the government in the film dealt with the quarantine to how their own governments would deal with the quarantine, and then declare the film to be unrealistic. How do they know how this fictional government would treat the ill? What makes you think this movie was even set in any real country at all? How do you know it was even a democratic country? It seemed almost a dictatorship to me.
3. It was pointless - The people saying this are the ones who are truly blind! This movie made me realize that I was blind as well. By the end of the film, I looked at my family in a new way, I even found myself wishing I could have what the final seven people had in the end. It seems like it would take something just as terrifying and severe as a real "white sickness" to make most people wake up and truly SEE what they are missing!
The point? If you can think for yourself and don't need every detail explained and spoon fed to you, if you can watch a film for its literary value and not expect every single film to be perfectly realistic (I mean, what did these same reviewers say about Lord of the Rings? Unrealistic? Sigh), if you can read between the lines and enjoy finding metaphor and symbolism in a film or book... well, then, trust me, you will LOVE this movie! If you aren't the above type... Well then... Skip this movie, you won't get it, it will just upset and frustrate you, and make you leave unfair negative reviews.