Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Micransix Crappy film

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

hasnoform This was an extremely powerful film in so many ways and I'm somewhat surprised it wasn't hailed more than it was and that it didn't get the extent of theatrical releases that it actually deserved. Fundamentally about the fact that power can certainly corrupt and absolutely power even more so, Land of the Blind is often a very bleak vision of how humans will feel perfectly justified in going to extreme lengths to ensure that their end-goals are realised and that the means to achieve those ends become immaterial. Ralph Fiennes is a brave an excellent actor who I've seen astound me on stage on many occasions (let alone his excellent film-work) and he doesn't disappoint at all in this hugely powerful role. Tom Hollander once again probably steals the show with his psychotic portrayal - a truly frightening character and a marvellously brave performance yet again from this amazing actor who seems able to be brilliant in every single role he ever does and all the roles are so hugely different.

Willemite The casting was most appealing and raised hopes far beyond what was actually delivered. I found that watching this film was a bit like listening to American Pie back in the day, trying to figure out the reference point for each line. Maybe one can ask, "how many dictators can dance on the point of a needle?" The Reagan references were pretty obvious, the tarot cards (Ron and Nancy relied on an astrologer), Max calling his wife "Mommy," also a known Reaganism. I don't think I want to know what the basis was, if any, for the perverse private practices of Max and spouse. Presenting Max in the opening sequence in a silly hat may have made him laughable, a possible reference to the malapropisms of 43, but once his dark core was revealed such lightness was merely annoying. There is clearly considerable content here about the nature of liberty and power, and how and when one should act when faced with immoral leadership. References abound, but I felt as if it were almost more of a parlor game for the makers of the film than a serious querying of human responsibility or a wise, satirical look at power and politics. The references to Iran and to extremists of both the right and left substituted a blunt instrument for a sharp one. I was waiting for them to quote the Who on the character of bosses. Is all power really the same? Are all who attempt to lead so inherently flawed? Are all who achieve leadership evil or wrong-headed? Surely there are some who are better than that. Ultimately, the film offers a well-educated cynicism, which seems a waste of a good education.

dballred I have always had a certain fascination for stories which indict the abuse of power in the name of the state. After I saw this film the first time, I couldn't stop thinking about it. It had all the disturbing characteristics of an Orwellian novel, but it was not as relentlessly depressing. I believe the screenwriter was holding out the hope that the people will "get" the story.In this film, a mythical country is beset by an endless array of despots. These despots show character traits mankind has witnessed in real life, such as Pol Pot, Mussolini, Louis XVI/Marie Antoinette, Peron, Ayatollah Khoumeni, and Kim Jong Il. In this "land of the blind," the people are more interested in popular culture than the suffering of mankind at the hands of the despots. As a result, they elect movie stars to represent them in what becomes clear as a sham system.Those people who are politically motivated and want to see a parallel between the nasty people who are leading the poor nation in the story to ruin and the current world leaders are, in my opinion, completely missing the point. In the first place, the title of this film should provide a clue. In a "land of the blind," just about anybody could arise to a position of power because the "blind" are too easily led.In this film, there is a heavy reliance on imagery and metaphor. The main repetitive image is that of an elephant. In the movie, the parable of the blind men and the elephant is brought out and that, in my opinion, is what this film is all about. New governments can provide their side of the story--the elephant--to the blind public by steering them to the desired part of the anatomy.Donald Sutherland, playing a character aptly named Thorn, is one of the best casting choices ever made. You'll need to see this film to understand what I'm talking about. I gave this a nine rating out of ten.

Kazetnik Many others have commented on this "homage" to all satires of a political bent and its hodge-podge of referenced dictators, and I can only agree. Pol Pot, Hess, Mussolini, Caligula, Winston Smith, they're all here, filtered through a film school montage of techniques and borrowings. It's all very unsatisfactory, character motivations are opaque and inconsistent, and the tone is uneven, uncertain if it is satirical comedy or mockumentary expose.The ostensible message identified by other reviewers of the movie - that all resistance to tyrants by ordinary people is futile - is, however, less clear to me. Yhe very fragmented nature of the final ten minutes or so seems not to have been commented on either here or in professional reviews. To write it off as a descent into madness, as it has been, seems to ignore a certain poignancy and trickiness of the closing scene, where the daughter leaves her father in a flat on a council estate (looking like somewhere in South London), gets into the lift and weeps. Are we meant to conclude that everything that has gone before is the delusion of a madman, typing his story endlessly to the exclusion of the real? Or that the hypercoloured parody of the bulk of the film is a metaphor for the life that we Winstons live in apparent freedom but actual oppression? A block of flats, uniform, utilitarian, where people try and make a life for themselves lacks the drama of a North Korea or Cambodia, and the censorship and mental poverty may be invisible to us since we are not starving or sent to re-education camps or explicitly tortured. Maybe I am being too generous to this very flawed film, but the ending has left me with many questions than anything else in the movie, since it seems to require us to go back and look again at the rest of the movie. Are we so remote from this exaggerated, fictional country? Is it just a matter of degree?