HM341

Contagion
Heet Mistry
201901269
Although the film was released in 2011, it got its major appreciation after the pandemic we lived
through. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the movie always moved in smooth paced manner delivering
various aspects of the pandemic without being overdramatic and exaggerating any point. Although
there a large number of characters in the movie every single one of them has their own point to
explain and a proper reasoning to it. It gets us through a deeper dive along the pandemic procedural
and various stages of it. Movie basically revolves around the psychology and human behaviours
responding to such an epidemic in an increasing order of panic and tension among people. Panic and
urgency to save our lives first, leads people to take wrong steps and following rumours on social
media and even in state to kill other persons. Movie starts with a scene where various travels around
the being infected and infecting everyone they come in contact. It wasn’t too late for them to infect a
noticeable number of people within few days. After the initial stages of the pandemic the storyline
shifts towards the panic rising among the public. We could resemble to many events like Quarantine,
looting and violence, black marketing of the so-called fake cures and rumours. Movie also tries to
address a general issue about the misuse of political power under state of emergency. High profile
political leaders are given more priority than lives of hundreds of people. Even at the time of
pandemic the officials were more inclined to gain more Christmas profit rather than to take
precautionary steps to safeguard the outbreak of the virus. Also, the influence of social media during
this time increases exponentially. People would blindly follow the rumours on social media just to be
alive. A perfect of example of human nature that when your life is at the stake nothing is right or
wrong everything is about the survival by hook or by crook. No matter how good hearted or kind
person you are you will try to save your family’s life first.
Also a amazing example of rumour was portrayed by the movie through a character called Alan
Krumwiede , who through his social media platform tried to increase the sales of drug called
Forsythia by faking his infection and spreading a rumour that cure to this infection is herb called
Forsythia. But still people blindly believed him and started accumulating the drug by rushing to
pharmacies. The helplessness of the people was making them do all these things, but it was not much
later than people came up with a solution to this problem and the vaccine was discovered. And here
comes a real-life problem about the distribution of the vaccine, Movie tries to depict this problem
where the Dr Ellis Cheever’s wife was threated and harassed by the burglars to get them the vaccine
first. I didn’t like idea about deciding who gets the vaccine first by their birth dates. In real world
pandemic government did a good job distributing it first to front line workers and then moving down
the arc. Also, the ending of the film was trying to deliver a message that the consequences of your
actions will eventually catch up to you will have no choice but to accept it.
In the ending part of the movie how all this was a loop of events started by Beth Emhoff’s firm, who
were clearing the forest area where bats used to habitat. This activity caused a disturbance in their
habitat which forced them to move to the residential area. Where one of the bat-drops and infected
banana in a pig farm which was followed by the pigs eating them and getting infected from an
unknown virus, later when these pigs were slaughtered and sold to a person which was none other
than Beth Emhoff who was the first one to get infected and died from this infection. Her own deeds
lead her to this situation. People would connect more to this after a Covid pandemic, all the stages of
the film feels so real and perfectly depicts a real epidemic. Also, the cast was amazing to portray all
characters perfectly. Could you imagine how would Steven Soderbergh would have imagined the
future to such a precision.