Anyone who has seen Steven Soderbergh’s ominously dark 2011 pandemic thriller ‘Contagion’ during this COVID-19 period is probably musing about how it has spot-on predicted our dire situation. Yet, in essence, the reality of our actual pandemic is much aberrantly stranger and more insidious than the researchers and writers of the film can foresee.
While the film starts with the dramatic case of how a novel virus spreads from China via an infected American in Hong Kong, our coronavirus had humble beginnings with just some minor news of a SARS-like virus detected in a wet market in Wuhan, China. It is so understated that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared that there is no human-to-human transmission in early January 2020, basically mimicking what China is falsely claiming during those crucial first days. Millions of Wuhan residents have already flown to other countries to celebrate Chinese New Year by this time, surreptitiously bringing with them the virus. When some alarmed countries closed their borders, China-approved WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus castigates these countries for overreacting. And after the virus spreads continuously for the next few weeks, WHO didn’t declare it a pandemic until March 11, many weeks too late. No film can match how the origins of this virus conspired failingly the way it has, in this case, like the perfect storm for world chaos.
The MEV-1 virus in ‘Contagion’ is a lethal one, killing everyone infected, starting with Patient Zero Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow). Again, its made-up fictional nature becomes more evident as her husband Mitch Emhoff (Matt Damon), for some questionably unscientific reason, has a fortuitous immunity to the virus. The film’s virulent highlight was the infection and eventual death of epidemic intelligence officer Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet), illustrating how a novel virus in the absence of any vaccine can kill and kill instantly.
This situation is not the case with COVID-19, a very cunningly deceiving and grossly underestimated virus in terms of lethality and infectiousness. Early on, many countries have downplayed its airborne aerosol nature, dismissing the use of face masks, while ignoring its pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic cases. The result is a quietly creeping infection rate, whether it be on a cruise ship to Japan or inside New York’s subway trains.
COVID-19 is a selective virus as well, as it mainly kills the elderly and those with co-morbidities, sparing most of the young and healthy, confounding the situation. It has led to the false sense of health security among young people as most of them become smug and complacent when they generally recover from their minimal to mild symptoms, unaware of its long-term health damage. It has divided societies with the invincibility of youth against the precarious uncertainty of the unhealthy and elderly. This divide has been visible on many fronts from restrictions on pubs, gyms, and beaches to the vulnerability of aged care homes. The divisiveness has become political too in countries like Brazil and the US where polarising Presidents Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have opposed lockdowns.
In the film, the plot mostly focused on the precarious search for a vaccine led by Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) and Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It also highlighted generically the violence and looting associated with quarantines. The reality of COVID-19, on the other hand, has distinctly attached anarchy to more significant causes such as the marches and protests worldwide of the US-originated Black Lives Matter as well as the dissent and riots of the Hong Kong liberation movement.
While the character of Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) personifies conspiracy while posting in his blog the homeopathic cure derived from forsythia, the real world has Trump and Bolsonaro espousing the unproven benefits of the drug hydroxychloroquine. Of course, COVID-19 is a ripe source of other conspiracy theories from China’s Wuhan virology lab manufacturing the virus as a bio-weapon to 5G networks spreading the virus to plans of Bill Gates for a microchip in the vaccine.
To globalise the film, WHO epidemiologist Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) is featured in a subplot of being kidnapped in Macau and ransomed for the vaccine. This storyline is possibly the most farfetched and implausible aspect of the movie, which for the most part, has captured the essence of social psychology in a response to a pandemic. The film has avoided more sinister twists like a deadlier mutation of the virus such as the 1918 flu pandemic or escalating mistrust between nations like what is building up now.
The worldwide impact of COVID-19 has been the destabilisation of societies and economies, the political bungling of despotic leaders, and a muddled view of an uncertain future before a successful cure. There is continuing debate among countries whether to have a suppression or elimination strategy. Success stories like New Zealand, Taiwan, and Thailand that have adopted strict elimination have enjoyed some relative security so far. Then, there is the polar opposite of Sweden, which took a no lockdown let-it-rip policy resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths without any clear advances to their economy.
The feasibility of an effective vaccine is still months away, maybe even years if we are unlucky. There is still no magic bullet for the present. The exponentially growing global infections and its mortality have only brought with it an erratic, unpredictable future. International borders are still mostly closed. Lockdown fatigue is getting worse by the month. The outlook for the world economy is pretty grim. There is a worsening rift between the US and China now being tested to a potential dispute zone of the South China Sea. The prospect of a major war is unthinkable but not impossible, given the harrowing circumstances.
If you are looking for drama and conflict, ‘Contagion’ is an imaginary puppy compared to the real Godzilla monster of COVID-19.
The Oscars are here again, and it has been quite a competitive year, with many deserving hopefuls vying only for five nominee slots in each major category. Even the much-coveted Best Picture award has a healthy set of nine nominees, above the usual eight films, nearing its limit of ten slots.
The Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF) is heading to its Closing Night on 17 March 2021 at the Ritz Cinema in Randwick. Film screenings have also started at Roseville Cinema in Roseville from 6-24 March. The best news is that there will be encore screenings at the Ritz Cinema from 18-31 March.
