Contagion film review: why is it better than 62% of the disaster movies?

Celine2020

Member
Today I watched the movie Contagion. It tells a story of a deadly virus that can be spread all over the world by air and contact and people's reactions to it. Here I do not intend to go into the details of the plot but just to post some of my own opinions. Only by obeying nature can we conquer nature. To be frank, there are not many emotional plots in this movie. It just satirizes the darkness of society and the distortion of human nature objectively, yet it promotes justice to some extent.

At the beginning of the movie, Beth, a woman who returned from Hong Kong, soon died of a sudden illness. After that, a large number of patients with the same symptoms died in many different places, which caused global panic. In the face of the outbreak, the CDC knew nothing about the virus except that it contained genetic sequences from the bat or pig and that it was spread by contact. Then a series of ironic events happened.

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1. The government's response

In the face of a global disaster, the United States government failed to come up with a responsible approach. The government failed to properly control the population after the outbreak, and because of the high risk of the virus, they wanted to give up when faced with research difficulties, and even ordered most laboratories to ban the research. What they didn't realize was that if no one was willing to risk their life to do the experiment, the time for the vaccine to be developed would be greatly extended. Time is life. Countless people would be infected and even die any time. Ridiculously, though the vaccine was later produced, the order of inoculation weren’t given. Instead, drawing lots was carried out. Many admitted at all it was a fair way, but what they didn’t know was that, Mr. Kiefer, the C.D.C. director, got the first batch -- two doses both for him and his wife -- without a lottery. Is it really fair to the people who were suffering from the virus? I think you must have an answer in mind.

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2. The masses' behavior

Most people lost their reason and conscience in the face of the disaster, and they often took extreme ways to express their dissatisfaction with their fate. Riots broke out in several cities with people robbing stores and trying desperately to get fake drugs and even for food from the unscrupulous media. The price of their folly was more tragedies even more deaths.

3. The media's influence

As far as I’m concerned, the media were the most scandalous. What the media should have done was to use the platform to correctly provide aid to the victims, and give everyone encouragement and confidence rather than use the network to create rumors and make crisis wealth. But in real life, there were many such people as Allen. As an online celebrity with 12 million fans, Allen publicly set the government up, lying that a drug called forsythia was the cure. He wasn't infected, but he made a video of himself saying he was infected with a high body temperature at 38.3 degrees, and then he drank the forsythia in front of the camera to gain people's trust. The lie brought him a large sum of money, but he didn’t know the lie harmed a large group of people, even his friend Lauren at work -- who was all right then but still got infected while waiting in line to buy forsythia just in case. She asked Allen for support before death. Alan wanted to help her, but dared not tell her the truth. He pretended to promise her that if he could find forsythia, he would give her in the first place. A few days later, Lauren died along with the baby in her womb. Sadly, they never knew that forsythia was no miracle cure.
 

Xmint

Member
It is not difficult to find, through these dark examples, that when a disaster comes, the impact of man-made disaster is often more terrible than the natural disaster. God is always punishing every greedy man who seeks to profit from nature without distinction. After watching this movie, I can easily connect the outbreak in China with the movie. In fact, we all will be amazed by their similarity -- both epidemics were caused by the bat (because of human excessive damage to nature), and illegal businessmen were profiting from the disasters. But fortunately, more people like Dr. Sussman in the movie do not chase after money or profit. Zhong Nanshan, Li Lanjuan and other well-known scientists, actors/actresses, warm-hearted citizens contributed a lot to China. With people’s sincere care and help, the world is becoming a better place. Just as the lines in the movie pointed out, "Only by obeying nature can we conquer nature!”
 
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