The horror that has been unfolding around us for the better part of 2020 has made us wonder: did we miss reading the signals? It is the future that films have been showing us for a long time. While Contagion is probably the most relevant and relatable of all, and a lot has already been written about it, there are many more out there that so eerily resemble our world today—be it the pandemic or the self-isolation. We round up a few.
Rear Window
This Alfred Hitchcock film sees his photographer hero trapped in his apartment with a broken leg. In true Hitchcock fashion, the man starts taking voyeuristic pleasure in his neighbours. The semi-innocent spying soon turns obsessive until he is convinced that his neighbours are somehow responsible for his wife’s death.
This 1954 film showcases what isolation can do to you, and how the devil feeds on an idle body and imaginative mind. At such moments when you are alone, it is not the positives that keep you going, but the imagined negativity of the world, is what Hitchcock tries to say.
The Exterminating Angel
Luis Buñuel’s 1962 classic can still hit very close to home. The Spanish surrealist’s masterpiece is perhaps the definitive portrait of societal breakdown. The story starts off with a lavish dinner party, post which a large group of guests are somehow unable to leave the drawing room.
Slowly, the flimsy veils of civilisation lift. As servants leave, unruliness descends. Food runs out, followed by water. Life-sustaining medication goes missing. And death comes, claiming the elderly and frail. From hedonistic pleasures, to prayers, to sacrifices and suicides, everyone has his or her own coping mechanism in this madness.
Flu
This South Korean film deals with a deadly strain of H5N1, which claims its victims within 36 hours of contracting the virus. From the death of illegal immigrants in a shipping container, to a city under siege, this film is a thriller.
What makes it more relatable is how in the face of the unknown epidemic, the worst in humans come forth—looting, panic-buying, hoarding, escapism and more—as each tries to win the war for survival. Fear becomes the key factor that the virus feeds on and humans keep falling prey to it.
Cast Away
This is probably the most positive film that you would need to watch to make peace with self-isolation. A workaholic is stranded on an island post an air crash. In his fight for survival, he begins to understand the real values of life and what he has been missing all along.
Making each day count with the barest resources and learning to be resilient in the face of total loneliness, while still looking forward to another day with hope in your heart—this and more is what this gem of a film is all about.
Outbreak
This 1995 film talks about the spread of an Ebola-like virus that has its source in the African jungles. An infected monkey is let loose and the disease spreads in a town in the US. It resembles our times in the situation where the Army quarantines a town and imposes martial law.
The film also talks about human greed and desperate need among most to survive. While it is a perfect popcorn entertainer, the film—thanks to its theme and treatment—also chills. While it was a major box office success, it is also a coincidence that when the film releasd Zaire was being ravaged by Ebola.
This is Not a Film
Co-directed by Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, and partly shot on an iPhone, it shows Panahi’s life in house arrest. He tries various methods to cope with his isolation, but everything proves fruitless and he often breaks down in frustration.
Critically acclaimed, the film explores the physical boundaries and how the mind acts and reacts when the body is kept caged. It is a striking commentary on today’s times, and one that many during self-isolation would easily relate to.
I am Legend
A genetically re-engineered measles virus, originally developed to cure cancer, mutates and turns lethal. The world becomes Dystopian—90 percent dead, 9.8 percent turned into ‘Darkseekers’ and 0.2 percent immune to the virus who are preyed on by Darkseekers.
The last remaining human in New York is racing against time to find a cure before the vampire-zombies get to him. An ode to solitude and man’s friendships, and values which make him what he is, it is perhaps one of the saddest films.