Choosing a film often seems more complicated than it need be given the sheer volume on offer. For me the older productions, even the black and white movies give me more satisfaction than the modern more tech driven film. A good detective or a trial where ordinary people are portrayed in relatable scenes which I link to my own experience, the Bobby on the beat rather than the improbable computer wiz kid on his police computer tracking the crime.
Last night Andrew and I watched a film called Contagion it was made in 2011 and had us both gasping. To a T it played out, scene by scene, using the same language, the same time frames, the same environments, the same source of infection and so on. It was if the film had been made a week ago.
How realistic, how precedent, if the Government had watched this film in 2011 and had responded with measures to protect its citizens by stockpiling equipment for front line staff. Why this throughly convincing film hadn't jerked the government out of its complacency I don't know. There were so many parallels. The Contagion started in a Chinese meat market, it was transferred by people travelling using the subway and the airplane, it showed how the virus spreads and the rate it multiplied using the phrases we hear today such as the Vo coefficient, the absence of a vaccine, the need to distance and self isolate. It was a mirror image of what is happening today and quite scary given it was released in 2011.
Films are not made in isolation to the needs of a society, it's a medium which is often used to get a message across but it illustrates the gulf between the executive and the rest of us and as usual our masters were tuned into something else
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