Contagion
There’s a lot of blue and grey and yellow in Contagion. The film depicts a realistically disastrous present, full of cold science and cold shoulders. People are sad; angry too, but not in a red way - more of a resigned, wintery way. Blue. There are multiple perspectives, a multitude of realities at work, networked together like a mapping of our globalized modernity. Doctors rush to contain the outbreak, morally conflicted between protocol and instinct. Those in power perhaps cut to the front of the line, putting their families first. No one is traditionally good or bad, exactly. Just people, giving life a go. The virus is the thing. But of course, the virus, thriving in a bleak winter during bleak times, elicits all sorts of questionable behavior: the government acts quickly to contain and immunize, but is it motivated by pharmaceutical profit? The blogosphere scrutinizes and offers its own agenda, but how can it be trusted? People become pitted against each other, every family out to grab the last case of water or supposed herbal cure while stepping on the neck of their neighbor. There is morality to be gleaned here, but no character is clearly benevolent or malicious. Grey. And then there’s the sickness itself. Death. A sallow, vile sweat that overcomes the hapless multitude of victims, who keel over in dehumanizing suffering. In death, freedom from earthly troubles. A light at the end of the tunnel, if only. Yellow.
Steven Soderberg has been hard at work compiling perhaps the most unique and interesting resumé of any working director. He is a master craftsman, and Contagion is but the latest in his polished, impressive oeuvre, complete with signature soundscapes, camera angles and edits. He has made movies more incendiary (Traffic), more pensive (Solaris), more buzz-worthy (Sex, Lies and Videotape) and more star-studdedly entertaining (Ocean’s Eleven). But Contagion ably, if perhaps routinely, combines all such facets of his game. The cast is strong, the script is laudable, the direction, of course, pristine. It’s always nice to see big names turn up for parts perhaps beneath their marquee status in order to achieve something bigger than the sum of its parts. I’m not convinced that this does just that, but I’m impressed by the effort, and entertained in the meantime. There are some unfortunate moments: certain lines delivered (by Jude Law, and by some bitch medical administrator) feel awkward and extraneous, even didactic. But overall, the film avoids preachiness, and does a fine job of getting under one’s skin.
Even if I wash my hands every hour and avoid touching my face every minute, I’m susceptible to all the germs that we live amongst. It’s quite literally unavoidable, and it makes for a panicky time at the onset of any such event. But even barring an outbreak, paranoia is always a threat. The virus is a frightening adversary because it exists in one’s mind as much as anywhere else - it’s invisible. My dad used to warn me, in high school, to drive with utmost caution at 2am after a party. I’ll be fine, dad, I’d say. It’s not you that I’m worried about, Keith - it’s the other reckless drivers out there on the road. One can point to a single incident of vehicular manslaughter (of which there are many, of course) to instill in one’s mind that the possibility, despite any mathematical reality, is constant.
There was a hurricane scare in New York at the end of our 2011 summer. It was treated as the biggest deal, sort of a media event. Lines at grocery stores went out the doors. The subway was shut down. Plans were made as if civilization was ending. Everyone bought into it, many fleeing town. Suddenly the news was on all the time, simply reminding the city to stay on edge. In a way, the city came together, bonded over the looming doom. Of course, the hurricane passed by New York City with virtually no effect. (Other places weren’t as lucky.) Even when the threat is an empty one, the (collective) mind harbors dark thoughts. If enough people tell you to be afraid, you will be. No one is immune to fear. Contagion is about a virus like H1N1 or the bird flu, but it’s really about mass hysteria, crowd control, the individual versus the mob, and the politics of a culture injected with a sense of its own mortality.
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