Contagion (2011)
Visions of a future novel Coronavirus.
Presentation:
Based on the Sars outbreak in Hong Kong, the film naturally resembles Covid more closely as the film’s dramatization ends up matching up with the more severe Covid pandemic. It’s actually uncanny and almost prophetic how the film unintentionally predicted so many of the events that would actually occur in 2019. Soderbergh utilizes natural if not a little grungy yellow lighting as usual with his wide scale editing that encompasses many simultaneous events and character arcs. This may be seen as distracting for many audiences, but I felt it highlighted the chaotic nature and wide impact of the virus. It’s also a bit docudrama in presentation as there doesn’t seem to be a message or point, though I disagree, I think the fact that Covid happened alone is enough to make the message loud and clear.
Conclusion:
Disorganized panic and incompetence seems like it will be humanity’s ultimate downfall. This film captures exactly that in one of the most real and relevant disaster movies of all time. It’s a film that gets better over time, proven by the realities of our inadequacies in the healthcare industry. I think it describes Covid so well, you could almost consider this a documentary eliminating the need for a future Covid movie. And what makes it all the more terrifying is it presents the events with Hollywood flair making you think it’s a dramatized disaster, when all the scenes play out similarly to reality making it even more shocking. But you had to have watched it in 2020 to really get that impact.
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Recommendations
Hollywood film noir doesn’t seem that high up anymore.