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The Canadian Press

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HALIFAX - An advocacy group for blind people says the film Blindness, which opened the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, perpetuates harmful stereotypes.

Written by Canadian filmmaker Don McKellar, the dark film depicts a society that slides into chaos as masses of people suddenly lose their sight.

Six members of the Halifax chapter of the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians attended a Saturday screening of the film.

Helen McFadyen, the group's president, said the characters in the film who lose their sight after contracting a mysterious illness are depicted as having no skills.

As well, the blind characters soil themselves, can't feed themselves and, when quarantined in groups, quickly descend into violence.

"The reality is that it portrays blind people as being helpless and almost losing their humanity," said McFadyen, who added that she recognizes that blindness is used as a literary device in the film. In the real world, blind or partly sighted people have different levels of independence and aren't defined exclusively by their visual impairment, she said.

McFadyen, who has some residual vision and uses a guide dog, said people often speak to her loudly or slowly or as they would to a child.

McFadyen, who wasn't able to see any of the film Saturday, said there was no version of Blindness available in which the onscreen action is narrated for the visually impaired.

McFadyen is encouraging others not to see the film, directed by Fernando Meirelles and based on the novel by Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago.

Alliance, the Canadian distributors of the film, couldn't be reached for comment Saturday.