CONTAGION

[maikuu]

Without seeing the movie, it might be hard to guess what is happening here.

[Andy]

This movie just reminds me of a real virus outbreak in the real world. SARS outbreak in China in 2002. At that time, almost all schools stop their class. Few people in the public area. All patients are isolated immediately. It cost the Chinese government a lot of time to determine what is the pathogen, virus, bacteria or something else, and it influences the speed of inventing the vaccine. At that time, almost all university take part in the inventing vaccine.

In the movie, when the public know that there is a severe disease spreading quacking around them, they try to get every resource they can, like food, water, and torch. No one obeys the rule. Some people even rob the supermarket to get the food they need. However, I think that many citizens rob shops are unrealistic in the real world. It might happen at the beginning of the crisis, but authorities will use their force, like police even the army, to maintain the order in society. They will arrange all the resources in the country and deliver it to citizens.

If there is a similar crisis happen in the real world, the human might just do as in the movie. First, they will isolate all the people who might get infected and object their symptoms to slow down its spread. At the same time, all the research organizations will work together to figure out the pathogen. After they find out the pathogen, scientists will start to invent the vaccine. It is exactly what the Chinese government did when the SARS outbreak in China in 2002.

After I watch this movie, I feel terrible about what people do when they face the crisis. People only concern themselves. Most people no longer obey ethics rules which we think are normal on average days. People will not wait in line when receiving delivered food. No people help others because they do not want to get a contract. The government officer and their family have the privilege to receive the vaccine first. People should feel shame about their behaviors.

[jiaqchen]

The film tended to introduce to audience some background stories about the origin of how a deadly virus spread[s] and end[s] with vaccines that developed from scratch. Besides the description of stories and characters, audience [is] able to see the protocols taken by authorities such as CDC and WTO, public’s reaction as well as how media responded to the epidemic.

I think the movie provided an accurate portrait of what would actually happen. Without any resolutions at the beginning and lack of resources when the epidemic strike[s], the virus spread[s] quickly worldwide with high fatality rate alongside break down the public causing enormous fear. Moreover, the movie also revealed some bloody truth of who makes money behind the epidemic, placebo, and early access to vaccines.

[RobertFY]

The film is talking about a serious disease, and this reminds me that several types of serious diseases have been spread in our real world. Ebola, a serious disease, threatened the whole world. Nearly 90% of infected people failed to respond to all treatment methods known by human beings. The resolution for this disease remains as a mystery. Although vaccines may be a resolution to prevent the outbreak, there is no certain treatment for infected people. Another example is SARS, a serious disease outbreak in China. Because of this, China developed its own anti-contagion system. Diagnosis, isolation, disease’s researches and experiments, medical research and therapeutic confirmation were been established to overcome contagions. The movie expresses the circumstance which is similar to the real world, for example, the process of isolation, to research and people’s reaction when facing the contagion.

Moreover, the movie shapes every character in an apt and realistic way. The freelance, Alan Krumwiede utilizes the disease to get rich. The character is not cherished in my opinion, but it is realistic. When facing SARS’s outbreak, the price of white vinegar, which is a kind of condiment, increased 10 times than it should be just because of the ridicule information like the forsythia in the movie. Dr. Erin Mears and Dr. Ally Hextall are heroes and they are both realistic too, like every doctor and nurse in the real world. They have the courage to confront the most serious disease in the world. They may not willing to do this, but they choose to do this because of their duty.

When facing a similar situation, humans may respond to this in a fast speed more than our imagination. The authorities will first hinder the spread of the disease, quarantining all of the infected people and suspicious infected people. Secondly, the data of their blood sample will be sent to the CDC in each country. Researches and medical trials will be both implemented in Labs and hospitals. Doctors will try to use every possible method to control or cure the disease. If the situation is out of control, the government will post information, and protocols will be established to try to encumber the spread like health quarantine in every complex and crowded place. In addition, like what happens in the movie, P4 labs, the highest level of protected labs built by human beings will try their best to overcome the disease. However, not one P4 lab but dozens of P4 labs will conduct experiments and researches. Data will be communicated and shared between them. Vaccines will be produced based on the data and distribute to all infected area.

From my perspective, I think the most horrible thing is not the disease but human beings. Doctors and nurses try to do their best to cure the disease even scarifying their life, however, businessmen and some authorities just want their benefits not to be harmed. That is sarcasm. I prefer the expression of the human feeling in the movie. It may come from some prototypes in the real world. In conclusion, the movie is fantastic.

[nina47678]

I think the fictional situation in the film is similar to the real world because it truly happened in our history. It just creates a new type of virus in the film, and there are some diseases outbreak and have the same situation in the real world. For example, the authorities announced that contagious patients had to be isolated and everyone should wear a mask and avoid expose in public places and diseases caused lots of death. In the film, I think that Dr. Ellis Cheever disclosed serious truth to her wife at the first moment and her wife successfully left from a dangerous area to a safe place. Although this behavior cannot be accepted by the public, he just tried to save a person he loves. I think people in the same position will have the same behavior when they face the same situation because they will want to make sure the safety of their family. Therefore, I will not think that this is a bad behavior instead I am impressed that he did not escape from the blame of the public and try to do everything he could.

I think it will have the same situation that is showed in the film. People will be afraid and try to rob the food from markets or others to survive. Although the government will send the army and avoid this situation, the army cannot solve every situation in different places because the amount of people is bigger than the amount of army. Finally, I felt so sad that people had such reactions when they faced the crisis. I mean that I can understand people yearn for the living, but people left their ethical and moral standards behind in order to survive. There are lots of different morality issues in the film. I cannot agree with these situations especially robbing food from others.

[Grandy416]

CONTAGION not just describes the process from the beginning to the end of an epidemic, but also exposes complex humanities to the audience. What would we do if there were not enough food during a disaster? What would we do if there were few drugs or vaccines? Are they nasty people? Some of them just want their daughters or villagers alive. Maybe we will do the same thing as the community in the movie, perhaps not. We do not know what terrible things we can do until we are in that situation. That is the evil in our human nature. So how we can defeat ed the virus in the end? Because there are also love and kindness in the world. Dr. Erin Mears contributed her life to the investigation of the issue. Dr. Ally Hextall uses herself to test the vaccine, and her father also gets infected when he took care of the patients.

The movie not always narrative the good or the wrong thing, but intersperses with small detailed plots through the whole film, which makes it more realistic. Dr. Ellis Cheever is my favorite character. He is too real. He cares about the cleaner’s child; he even gives the vaccine to that kid. He blames himself for letting his colleague go to the disaster area although death is not his responsibility. But he tells his wife to leave Chicago secretly. Does he selfish? I think absolutely no. From my point of view, what he does is reasonable, but indeed unfair to the public. Many of the characters and behaviors in the film are difficult to judge, and it is this that can cause us to think more about ourselves.

Except for the discussion of humanities, the description of MEV-1 contagion is also realistic. A small group of people get sick; the authorities blocks resources and information to maintain stable; if the virus is too hard to deal with, the epidemic spreads and causes panic around the world. It reminds me of the SARS, and H1N1 period in China, each school dispenses disinfectant for cleaning every day. When the epidemics outbroke, all the schools were closed, students were asked to stay at home and not go out as described in the movie. Even if science and technology are advanced, sometimes humans are at a loss in front of nature. What we can do is to protect ourselves as much as possible.

[NiaraG]

After finish reading articles and watching the movie, I find that there are some different detail between articles on the textbook and the plot in the movie. Firstly, the diffusion of the virus is not as easy as the way in the movie. People infect virus to others through body fluid exchange, and daily contact has very low possibility to be infected, like shaking hands or touching one same item. However, in the movie, the virus can spread quickly in the crowd if people have any kind of contact with each other. Secondly, different types of vaccines have different advantages and drawbacks, and vaccines which still in clinical trials have a great potential risk to apply on human’ s body. While people in the movie believe they will be saved and have no possibility to be infected by the virus if they can get the new vaccine.

The character of Matt Damon’s behavior is good in the movie. Firstly, he sent her wife to the hospital immediately after some abnormal symptoms appear on his wife. Secondly, he isolates his daughter with her boyfriend which can prevent the risk to be infected by the virus. However, Ally Hextall’s behavior is not a good example and it is impossible in reality. She is a doctor who acquires the authorities to investigate the vaccine to cure the virus, but in order to test whether it is effective to against the virus, she injects herself with a vaccine that has been tested successfully. The behavior is dangerous, because the unstable vaccine may bring serious negative response. In addition, the vaccine can be mass produced and sold after a serious complex examination, but it was produced after it helps the doctor build the immune system to resist the virus.

If a similar crisis happens in the real world, the government and the general public will have different attitude and behavior to face it. The government will invest a great of money to analyze the new virus and use formal data related to the virus to research and develop effective vaccines to cure it. The military will send soldiers to maintain social order in the public area. The general public will follow the guidance of the official and stay at home until the crisis disappear.

After watching the movie, I feel so sad because the human being will become cold-blood and cruel when they compete for their own interests, and compared with life and death, noting is important.

[Stephen1022]

In my opinion, “Contagion” is a high quality movie. A successful section is that this film successfully depicted the process of virus outbreak. Spreading through contact is indeed a common way in daily life, which is same with what we learned from the book. Besides, some details of this film are credibility, such as the deficit of resources, hoarding food, avoiding contact with others. These details are exactly the same as what I experienced during the SARS epidemic in 2003.

In addition, what impressed me the most was the respond of people facing a unknown disease. At first, they just thought it’s a normal cold and the issue isn’t serious. Gradually, when more and more people [u]contracted [/u]this disease, people started to panic and worried about their own health. Then, people’s mindsets might be influenced and conspiracies would increase. In the end, the society become disorder. In this movie, the description of people's behavior changes is very realistic. I truly think these problems would happened if we don’t have enough precaution in the dark.

This movie also gave us the resolution about what we should do when facing some unknown diseases. First of all,authorities should try their best to control the spreading of diseases. Besides, all medical staffs need to produce novellive attenuated vaccines and placebo to cure unknown diseases. People should also keep calm and isolate with others when they have symptoms of unknown diseases. I confidently believe that we can overcome all difficulties when facing unknown diseases.

Furthermore, the brightest part of the film is that although it didn’t describe the effects of infectious diseases in the most direct way, we can really feel the horrible through the psychological description of the characters. For example, Mitch felt very sad when his wife and son died of infectious diseases, but when he saw his daughter, he was more thankful than sad. The fear of an unknown disease left him no time to grieve, he just wanted to do his best to protect his last family. This plot impressed me and actually felt the impact of infectious diseases.

Although this movie isn’t prefect, I still recommend this movie because it pay attention to realistic problems that are easily overlooked. This movie has a certain educational significance.

[Kathyzzz]

As I read the three articles, the situation in the film is vivid. The authorities ordered to isolate infected region even if they don’t prepare enough resources. Due to fear of death, a panic cluster attacked rescue station and pharmacy to seek resolution. Unlike the doctors often are immune in other movies, they worked at the frontier line and exposed in viruses are the highest risk group to inject. However, in my opinion, Contagion is not a good movie because of confused plots and broken clips. Admittedly, the movie described what different roles would do in the epidemic, which is too superficial to trust. A researcher of Hongkong Government kidnapped a WHO epidemiologist to obtain MEV-1 vaccines for his village. Why they cannot find more information to assist WHO to develop a vaccine, then they can gain some vaccines.

In real life, we already have some crisis. For instance, Ebola, a rare and deadly virus we have ever met broke out in Africa. First, the government built rescue centers to isolate and cure the injected patient. Meanwhile, the scientists secured data from the blood samples and developed the vaccine. Actually, I moved by Dr. Erin Mears who is an intelligent officer to set up triage areas in large venues before the MEV-1 spreading. When she was injected, she looks like an ordinary person with fear and disappointment. However, as a doctor, she commanded decisively to deal with sticky situations and maintain the implement of plans.

[Zhequan Zhang]

Through the articles in the textbook, we have a deeper understanding of the vaccine. In the movie, the MEV-1 not only has many channels of transmission, but it also has strong vitality. This is manifested in its ability to infect through indirect contact and evolve. Compared to reality, the vitality of this virus is indeed too exaggerated. The two most famous examples of this century are SARS and H1N1. But their ability to shift and die is less than one-tenth of the MEV-1 in the film.

I believe that the director of this film is trying to show human nature through this disaster. However, too many characters lead to an insufficient promotion for everyone, and they do not show the multi-faceted nature of humanity. So that theirs can be simply evaluated as good or bad but not realistic enough. I think that the most described description is Dr. Ellis Cheever, and this character is also the one that makes me feel the most real. He is a researcher who struggles on the front line, and he also has family members. The fragment of his choice between family and the masses makes this film part become my favorite. The kind of urgency, he wants his family to go to a safe place right away, makes me feel real.

At the same time, I think this is what most people will do. When a disaster really happens, most people will only consider the interests of themselves or their families. Just like in the movie, a city without order is like a ruin.

To be honest, this movie only gives me the severity of the virus. The description of the character is too weak, and sometimes you don't even understand the meaning of the existence of several characters. Hence, if I can delete the branch that Hong Kong kidnapped and give more time to the character description of Dr. Erin Mears, her sacrifice may bring more impact and touch to people. But, still, it’s a nice movie to remind people how far or how serious the contagion can be.