If it’s visceral intensity you want, Fernando Meirelles’s adaptation of José Saramago’s best-selling science-fiction thriller should be just your bag.

It makes City Of God look tame.

Unfortunately, it lacks emotional sophistication, which is partly why it was received at Cannes this year with such disappointment.

Set in a grey and depressive metropolis (a combination of São Paulo and Montevideo), Blindness opens dramatically with a motorist (Yusuke Iseya) suddenly losing his vision at the traffic lights. Driving him home, his friend (Don McKellar) also falls prey to “white blindness”, as does his doctor (Mark Ruffalo).

Soon the disease spreads, with the notable and rather strange exception of the doctor’s wife (Julianne Moore).

Blurred and overexposed framing evokes the condition well. But what Meirelles then concentrates on is not the condition, or its cause, but the effect it has on the characters.

It is clearly a metaphor for the blindness and degradation of the human race but, since we know next to nothing about the participants — none of whom have names — it becomes increasingly difficult to empathise.

All the people we see end up in a huge, overcrowded and filthy detention centre where Gael Garcia Bernal calls himself the King and controls the food supply. He eventually demands women as payment for allowing the rest to eat.

Apocalyptic films, of which there have been many, are all very well. However, the stars we see acting this one out have a hard time getting any depth into their parts — even the usually excellent Moore.

It’s a nightmarish vision but also a bit of a mess, though Danny Glover’s wise old sage has at least been divested of most of his irritating, finger-wagging voiceovers which were a feature of the version shown in Cannes.

Blindness looks good and feels worse, as if all our futures are likely to be as bleak as Saramago suggested in his book.

But this time Meirelles seems to have forgotten that the best allegories are made of flesh and blood, not mere symbols to be pushed this way and that at the whim of their director.