The Contagion is creating the longest and most expensive “Don’t forget to wash your hands” ad. The perfection of the ‘ensamble’ * tension that director Steven Soderbergh, who has been filming almost every two weeks, brings together the herd with the Oscars, is debatable, but it is certain that the people we can refer to as illnesses are absolutely impressive that they should not see.
Soderbergh once again depicts the international effects of a dangerous issue, as it did in Traffic, which was highly acclaimed in 2000 and still considered the best movie of the director. We can even say that the version of Traffic for Outbreak is an infected version rather than drugs. Although it is not as epic and sedative as Traffic, and some of its subtopics are lagging behind in terms of quality, the epidemic offers a very successful tension.
The scenario around an attempt to stop a mysterious deadly virus spreading around the world and killing millions will immediately remind the 1995 movie Outbreak from Dustin Hoffman. The Threat, with its nuclear bomb threat and a deadly race against time in its finale, was a more classic Hollywood thriller, although I liked that movie for different reasons.
The epidemic makes Soderbergh’s documentary-style visual approach (he has also directed the cinema himself) and controlled acting, as well as the writings that indicate days and places have a more realistic and therefore more frightening world, even with a dry and procedural image. Most of the small stories that make up the movie are also very impressive. From this perspective, we can mention the following:
The spouse (Matt Damon), one of the first victims of the deadly virus, learns that he is immune to the virus and closes home to prevent his daughter from getting sick. A virus scientist (Kate Winslet), who sets out to investigate the virus, comes across an unpleasant surprise. The power of these sequences increases with the level of performance we expect from Damon and Winslet.
But Salgın’s most impressive mini-story, in my opinion, is also the least time devoted to it. The reason for this is that the actress who plays the character is not an Oscar candidate or a winner star. The key scene between Doctor Ally (Jennifer Ehle), who made a crucial breakthrough in the fight against the virus, and his sick father, is the film’s most emotionally impressive and successful sequence. I wish there was a wider story about these two characters.
Unlike Traffic, there are some apples that we can call a few bruises or viruses in this basket. For example, the social mess created by a conspiracy theorist Blogger, played by Jude Law, does not fit into the more personal approach of the rest of the movie. In addition, the episode about Chinese townspeople, who missed a doctor of the World Health Organization (Marion Cotillard) to be in the first place for the virus vaccine, is not adequately studied and lags a bit in the air.
After all, the Outbreak is a tight and impressive tension even if it is not one of the best of the year. But still, don’t forget to wash your hands after reading this article. How many microbes can he know now on that mouse.
Contagion (2011)
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Jennifer Ehle, Anna Jacoby-Heron, Josie Ho, Sanaa Lathan
Screenplay by: Scott Z. Burns
Production Design by: Howard Cummings
Cinematography by: Steven Soderbergh
Film Editing by: Stephen Mirrione
Costume Design by: Louise Frogley
Set Decoration by: Cindy Carr
Art Direction by: Abdellah Baadil, Simon Dobbin, David Lazan
Music by: Cliff Martinez
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for disturbing content and some language.
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: September 9, 2011
Visits: 114
