The end of the world on your TV

The alien virus

In In­va­sion (2007), the sec­ond re make of the clas­sic film The In­va­sion of the Body Snatch­ers (1956), the role of hero goes to a woman, Nicole Kid­man, and the threat comes from be­yond Earth. The virus is alien, and Kid­man strug­gles to save her son, rather than the whole human race. The in­fec­tion ar­rives through sleep and not even James Bond’s Daniel Craig is able to stop it. A ter­ri­fy­ing pan­demic en­sues, which does not allow peo­ple to sleep. Imag­ine that hap­pened in ad­di­tion to what is going on these days? We couldn’t even enjoy one of the few plea­sures that en­forced quar­an­tine al­lows us. In the orig­i­nal, a spec­tac­u­lar Don­ald Suther­land con­fronts the ex­ter­nal threat, but with­out suc­cess. Once again in In­va­sion the Amer­i­can film in­dus­try al­lows us a happy end­ing, but with some final re­flec­tions and ques­tions to take into ac­count.

The qui­etest and most enig­matic pan­demic erupted a year later in The In­ci­dent, from a mas­ter of in­trigue and ten­sion, M. Night Shya­malan. The pro­posal is again dis­turb­ing and ob­scure, as now hu­mans, with­out know­ing why, com­mit sui­cide col­lec­tively for no ap­par­ent rea­son. The phe­nom­e­non starts in Cen­tral Park, New York, and spreads to sev­eral cities in the east­ern United States. An air­borne toxin is the cause, and only a lucid sci­ence pro­fes­sor, Mark Whal­berg, ends up find­ing the key to it: plants. The wind spreads the dan­ger­ous toxin among groups of peo­ple as if it were a coro­n­avirus chas­ing the cit­i­zens at Mer­cadona in the midst of a tus­sle for the last of the valu­able toi­let paper sup­plies. Shya­malan’s nar­ra­tive abil­ity adds to his con­stant con­cern for the lack of knowl­edge about the ori­gin of a com­pletely in­vis­i­ble and asymp­to­matic enemy. In the end, Hol­ly­wood once again gives hu­mans a sec­ond chance, al­beit with a warn­ing about what may come with cli­mate change. It is ter­ror with a mes­sage.

Those who had no sec­ond chance were the pro­tag­o­nists of other pan­demics, al­ready con­sum­mated in post-apoc­a­lyp­tic and to­tally dev­as­tated worlds. In Twelve Mon­keys (1995), the few peo­ple who sur­vived a lethal virus are liv­ing un­der­ground. Terry Gilliam tries to put the dis­as­ter right through the clas­sic re­source of trav­el­ling in time. A dis­ori­ented and ill Bruce Willis is in charge of find­ing out first what hap­pened and then avert­ing the dis­as­ter by re­turn­ing to a past that does not ex­actly wel­come him with open arms.

In The Road (2009) and The Book of Eli (2010) it all gets so much worse, be­cause noth­ing can be fixed any more. In both films, the rea­son why the world came to its end is not clear. There is al­most no one left and the plot is the day-to-day strug­gle of the pro­tag­o­nists in their at­tempt to sur­vive in des­o­late and ad­verse con­di­tions. Of course, there are im­por­tant dif­fer­ences be­tween the two films. In the first, per­haps the best post-apoc­a­lyp­tic film that has ever been made, the crude­ness of every­day re­al­ity in a world with­out life, veg­e­ta­tion, or food, is mas­ter­fully ev­i­dent. An im­mense Viggo Mortensen in­flicts his suf­fer­ing and that of his son on us with­out pity. The un­cer­tainty about the fu­ture is com­plete, be­cause there is no fu­ture. And, watch out, be­cause in this post-apoc­a­lyp­tic world there is also, ob­vi­ously, can­ni­bal­ism. The pho­tog­ra­phy is mas­ter­ful, and the heavy dose of re­al­ity makes us think, for ex­am­ple, that it wouldn’t be wrong to lock up in some far away place all the bombs that still exist on the planet, and then throw away the key. Just in case.

The Book of Eli is much less cruel, and is closer to en­ter­tain­ment, in a pro­duc­tion in which Den­zel Wash­ing­ton shines. The in­fi­nite high­ways and giant bridges are still de­mol­ished, but now the search is more sym­bolic and metaphor­i­cal than any­thing else: pre­serv­ing a Bible to bring re­demp­tion to the few re­main­ing hu­mans.

There is also a great deal of hope, re­demp­tion and faith in Chil­dren of Men (2006), by the Mex­i­can di­rec­tor Al­fonso Cuarón, which pre­sents us with a dystopian fu­ture set in 2027 (not time much left for that), in which so­ci­ety is close to ex­tinc­tion due to a lack of human fer­til­ity. Men can no longer pro­cre­ate and women have be­come ster­ile. In an en­vi­ron­ment of chaos, Clive Owen is charged with pro­tect­ing the most pre­cious asset on the planet: a refugee ready to give birth. The premise is in­ter­est­ing; the con­tent of the film not so much, but the way it un­folds and the raw at­mos­phere makes it well worth watch­ing.

Less sci­en­tific is I Am leg­end (2007), which, pan­demics aside, opens up a wide and won­der­ful world of killer zom­bies. In this re­make of The Omega Man (1971), Will Smith re­places Charl­ton He­s­ton as the last sur­vivor on Earth. There is only one left, easy. Or so it seems. Dr Neville can­not pre­vent the ex­pan­sion of a ter­ri­ble man-made virus, orig­i­nally cre­ated to erad­i­cate can­cer, which ends up mu­tat­ing into a mega-pan­demic. The truth is there are some sur­vivors, though they have be­come zom­bies. It’s about the strug­gle for sur­vival, not just being alone in an un­known and an­ni­hi­lated world, but also hav­ing to deal with new hos­tile en­e­mies.

The zom­bie threat

It was the un­for­get­table Night of the Liv­ing Dead (1968), and its mul­ti­ple re­makes and ver­sions, that was the first film to broach this theme. A sce­nario with con­ta­gious un­dead that we also saw in the ex­cel­lent 28 Days Later (2002), from di­rec­tor Danny Boyle, fol­lowed by the no-less no­table 28 Weeks Later (2007), di­rected by Juan Car­los Fres­nadillo. Then came In­fected (2009), by the broth­ers Àlex and David Pas­tor, the South Ko­rean Train to Busan (2016), REC (2007), and the never-end­ing Res­i­dent Evil saga (2002).

Brad Pitt also joined the dev­as­tat­ing and blood­thirsty zom­bie movie uni­verse in World War Z. In this nat­ural dis­as­ter, zom­bies take only 10 sec­onds to trans­form, and they are faster than usual, and very nu­mer­ous. See­ing the cur­rent pic­ture, we wouldn’t prob­a­bly go wrong if Gerry Lane, the fic­tional vi­rol­o­gist, could join Fer­nando Simon’s tech­ni­cal team, al­ways sur­rounded and flanked by se­nior of­fi­cials of Spain’s se­cu­rity forces. These re­ally are a pan­demic in them­selves.

The alien virus

In In­va­sion (2007), the sec­ond re make of the clas­sic film The In­va­sion of the Body Snatch­ers (1956), the role of hero goes to a woman, Nicole Kid­man, and the threat comes from be­yond Earth. The virus is alien, and Kid­man strug­gles to save her son, rather than the whole human race. The in­fec­tion ar­rives through sleep and not even James Bond’s Daniel Craig is able to stop it. A ter­ri­fy­ing pan­demic en­sues, which does not allow peo­ple to sleep. Imag­ine that hap­pened in ad­di­tion to what is going on these days? We couldn’t even enjoy one of the few plea­sures that en­forced quar­an­tine al­lows us. In the orig­i­nal, a spec­tac­u­lar Don­ald Suther­land con­fronts the ex­ter­nal threat, but with­out suc­cess. Once again in In­va­sion the Amer­i­can film in­dus­try al­lows us a happy end­ing, but with some final re­flec­tions and ques­tions to take into ac­count.

The qui­etest and most enig­matic pan­demic erupted a year later in The In­ci­dent, from a mas­ter of in­trigue and ten­sion, M. Night Shya­malan. The pro­posal is again dis­turb­ing and ob­scure, as now hu­mans, with­out know­ing why, com­mit sui­cide col­lec­tively for no ap­par­ent rea­son. The phe­nom­e­non starts in Cen­tral Park, New York, and spreads to sev­eral cities in the east­ern United States. An air­borne toxin is the cause, and only a lucid sci­ence pro­fes­sor, Mark Whal­berg, ends up find­ing the key to it: plants. The wind spreads the dan­ger­ous toxin among groups of peo­ple as if it were a coro­n­avirus chas­ing the cit­i­zens at Mer­cadona in the midst of a tus­sle for the last of the valu­able toi­let paper sup­plies. Shya­malan’s nar­ra­tive abil­ity adds to his con­stant con­cern for the lack of knowl­edge about the ori­gin of a com­pletely in­vis­i­ble and asymp­to­matic enemy. In the end, Hol­ly­wood once again gives hu­mans a sec­ond chance, al­beit with a warn­ing about what may come with cli­mate change. It is ter­ror with a mes­sage.

Those who had no sec­ond chance were the pro­tag­o­nists of other pan­demics, al­ready con­sum­mated in post-apoc­a­lyp­tic and to­tally dev­as­tated worlds. In Twelve Mon­keys (1995), the few peo­ple who sur­vived a lethal virus are liv­ing un­der­ground. Terry Gilliam tries to put the dis­as­ter right through the clas­sic re­source of trav­el­ling in time. A dis­ori­ented and ill Bruce Willis is in charge of find­ing out first what hap­pened and then avert­ing the dis­as­ter by re­turn­ing to a past that does not ex­actly wel­come him with open arms.

In The Road (2009) and The Book of Eli (2010) it all gets so much worse, be­cause noth­ing can be fixed any more. In both films, the rea­son why the world came to its end is not clear. There is al­most no one left and the plot is the day-to-day strug­gle of the pro­tag­o­nists in their at­tempt to sur­vive in des­o­late and ad­verse con­di­tions. Of course, there are im­por­tant dif­fer­ences be­tween the two films. In the first, per­haps the best post-apoc­a­lyp­tic film that has ever been made, the crude­ness of every­day re­al­ity in a world with­out life, veg­e­ta­tion, or food, is mas­ter­fully ev­i­dent. An im­mense Viggo Mortensen in­flicts his suf­fer­ing and that of his son on us with­out pity. The un­cer­tainty about the fu­ture is com­plete, be­cause there is no fu­ture. And, watch out, be­cause in this post-apoc­a­lyp­tic world there is also, ob­vi­ously, can­ni­bal­ism. The pho­tog­ra­phy is mas­ter­ful, and the heavy dose of re­al­ity makes us think, for ex­am­ple, that it wouldn’t be wrong to lock up in some far away place all the bombs that still exist on the planet, and then throw away the key. Just in case.

The Book of Eli is much less cruel, and is closer to en­ter­tain­ment, in a pro­duc­tion in which Den­zel Wash­ing­ton shines. The in­fi­nite high­ways and giant bridges are still de­mol­ished, but now the search is more sym­bolic and metaphor­i­cal than any­thing else: pre­serv­ing a Bible to bring re­demp­tion to the few re­main­ing hu­mans.

There is also a great deal of hope, re­demp­tion and faith in Chil­dren of Men (2006), by the Mex­i­can di­rec­tor Al­fonso Cuarón, which pre­sents us with a dystopian fu­ture set in 2027 (not time much left for that), in which so­ci­ety is close to ex­tinc­tion due to a lack of human fer­til­ity. Men can no longer pro­cre­ate and women have be­come ster­ile. In an en­vi­ron­ment of chaos, Clive Owen is charged with pro­tect­ing the most pre­cious asset on the planet: a refugee ready to give birth. The premise is in­ter­est­ing; the con­tent of the film not so much, but the way it un­folds and the raw at­mos­phere makes it well worth watch­ing.

Less sci­en­tific is I Am leg­end (2007), which, pan­demics aside, opens up a wide and won­der­ful world of killer zom­bies. In this re­make of The Omega Man (1971), Will Smith re­places Charl­ton He­s­ton as the last sur­vivor on Earth. There is only one left, easy. Or so it seems. Dr Neville can­not pre­vent the ex­pan­sion of a ter­ri­ble man-made virus, orig­i­nally cre­ated to erad­i­cate can­cer, which ends up mu­tat­ing into a mega-pan­demic. The truth is there are some sur­vivors, though they have be­come zom­bies. It’s about the strug­gle for sur­vival, not just being alone in an un­known and an­ni­hi­lated world, but also hav­ing to deal with new hos­tile en­e­mies.

The zom­bie threat

It was the un­for­get­table Night of the Liv­ing Dead (1968), and its mul­ti­ple re­makes and ver­sions, that was the first film to broach this theme. A sce­nario with con­ta­gious un­dead that we also saw in the ex­cel­lent 28 Days Later (2002), from di­rec­tor Danny Boyle, fol­lowed by the no-less no­table 28 Weeks Later (2007), di­rected by Juan Car­los Fres­nadillo. Then came In­fected (2009), by the broth­ers Àlex and David Pas­tor, the South Ko­rean Train to Busan (2016), REC (2007), and the never-end­ing Res­i­dent Evil saga (2002).

Brad Pitt also joined the dev­as­tat­ing and blood­thirsty zom­bie movie uni­verse in World War Z. In this nat­ural dis­as­ter, zom­bies take only 10 sec­onds to trans­form, and they are faster than usual, and very nu­mer­ous. See­ing the cur­rent pic­ture, we wouldn’t prob­a­bly go wrong if Gerry Lane, the fic­tional vi­rol­o­gist, could join Fer­nando Simon’s tech­ni­cal team, al­ways sur­rounded and flanked by se­nior of­fi­cials of Spain’s se­cu­rity forces. These re­ally are a pan­demic in them­selves.