C57 is a surface mount capacitor, I doubt that damage to that would cause the problem. When C54 or something connected to it goes bad you get the poor contrast problem. BTW on mine C57 is a tiny grey component, take a close look at the resistor R47 next to it to the right and the transistor Q11. Here is an ascii rendition of it. I assume yours is a VA1 unit.

C54+
| |
C57 R47
\ |____ Q11