Blindness: A Rape Trigger Film

Having seen the preview for this film, and not knowing anything else about it, I agreed to go with my fiance and another male friend to the theater tonight to see it.  It started out pretty well, (if a bit generically) as another movie detailing fast spreading illness, quarantine, the breakdown of society in times of crisis, etc. 

However, about an hour into the film, after the villain of the film says that everyone will have to pay for food (the scene they show in the preview), AND after everyone has already paid with what material valuables they have, you guessed it.  They mandate that every room will have to pay with women in order to eat. 

At this point, Julianne Moore, our fearless female, goes outside to talk to a guard and asks for more food, at which point she is told that they already gave them supplies and how they (the prisoners) divide that food is their own problem.  So back inside she goes.  A few minutes later (fast forward three days, evidently)  everyone in her room is hungry, and many men start saying that the women should volunteer (to be raped by a full room of men, say about 30-35 people).  A few other men hem and haw about how no one should force them, with Moore’s husband in his graciousness saying that "while it might hurt his male pride" he has to abide by his wife’s choice.  In getting raped so that everyone can eat. 

After another 3 minutes of entirely useless conversation whereby nothing gets accomplished, 9 women agree to go to Ward 3 (the bad ward) so everyone can eat.  After a scene of them all walking down to the ward (one girl saying they should just run outside so at least they can die quickly), they are there.  And what follows is the women going into the ward and getting inspected, followed quickly by an incredibly violent rape trigger (at which point I left, so I’m not sure what’s after that). 

I’m not going to go into detail here, suffice it to say it is the worst scene I’ve personally witnessed in film (and the only one that has ever affected me on a physical level). 

I am posting here (for the first time) because I truly want to save anyone else from this experience, and to warn them about this film.  Had I had any idea that this film contained such scenes, I never would have exposed myself to it, but I really hope that other people who were thinking about watching this film have second thoughts about that decision. 

I understand that this film is based on a book, but I can’t see how having a brutal rape scene of numerous women in any way adds to the enjoyment of this film.  I am so disgusted right now at the absolutely indifferent way that women’s bodies are treated in this movie that it makes my stomach hurt.  To read director Fernando Meirelles’ quote about his scene, "When I shot and edited these scenes, I did it in a very technical way, I worried about how to light it and so on, and I lost the sense of their brutality. Some women were really angry with the film, and I thought, ‘Wow, maybe I crossed the line," makes me really wonder why he can’t have the common sense to realize that casually depicting brutal assaults on women might make people upset.  I understand that this movie has received criticism from the blind community for its awful depiction of people who don’t have sight, but I don’t understand why there was no mention anywhere (in media, in early reviews, in theater warnings) that this movie was so graphic in its depictions of sexual assault on women.

P.S.  To give a better sense of the impact of this film on people who haven’t been sexually assaulted, my friend called it "rape fetish porn that he would never have watched if he had known", and my fiance threw up.  So I don’t recommend this film to anyone who has sensitivities in regards to not liking to see other people violently assaulted.