'Outbreak' sweeping cinema screens with virus scare
'Outbreak' sweeping cinema screens with virus scare
By Dini S. Djalal
JAKARTA (JP): Schadenfreude: it's a German phrase meaning "joy
at the suffering of others." It may not be the intention of the
moviemakers, but Outbreak, a new film depicting a deadly
epidemic, not unlike the Ebola scourge currently ravaging Zaire,
is undoubtedly cashing in on mainstream media's new nemesis: the
pestilent virus.
Cinema is an unparalleled documenter of the times we live in,
yet so many contemporary films slumber in the realm of fantasy.
If invaders from outer space were only exposed to films and
television shows, they would conclude that people on earth were
either CIA or KGB agents, cops and criminals, Vietnam veterans,
or overpaid lawyers.
Seldom does a film tap into the anxieties of the average
moviegoer. Prophesy is an even more rare accomplishment. If the
release of Outbreak had not preceded the Ebola crisis, audiences
may dismiss it for what it is: a generic Hollywood thriller with
a corny love-story subplot. Instead, by being a safe depiction of
a real-life catastrophe, Outbreak has achieved iconic status.
Without context, Outbreak would be without viewers.
Why? The cast is the first indication. Dustin Hoffman is the
heroic Army doctor Sam Daniels, whose ex-wife Robby (Renee Russo)
holds a civilian version of his job. Former model Russo (Lethal
Weapon 3, In the Line of Fire) stands tall as she repeats her
past roles as a beautiful woman holding unlikely jobs: a cop, a
CIA agent, and now a virus scientist. Both attempt to fill their
roles convincingly, but their superficial differences are only
enhanced by their uneasy chemistry.
Russo, however, is a great actress in supermodel guise.
Director Wolfgang Petersen remarked that he wanted someone
"vulnerable, honest, and warm". Russo is all this, and her
intelligence reveals itself through (or despite) her prominent
cheekbones.
Hoffman, on the other hand, was supposedly chosen because
Petersen needed an "unlikely hero," someone the audience feels
may not emerge victorious. Hoffman has played losers successfully
in past films (Midnight Cowboy, Papillon), and his charm does lie
in his intense ordinariness. But a failed hero and an unhappy
ending in a big-budget Hollywood film? In a genre where even
Danny De Vito may end up with fame, fortune and an Amazonian
blonde? Now THAT is truly unlikely.
So, Hoffman strides tough in his army gear from the depths of
Zaire, where the fictional Motaba virus originated, to the small
Californian town of Cedar Creek, where Motaba is decimating the
population. The events evolve as rapidly as a mutating virus in
action, and pretty soon the airborne disease is threatening not
only ignorant folk but also the medical community. Shriek! First
it was communism, then AIDS and terrorism, and now Motaba! What
terror must Americans battle next? It's all a bit like The Attack
of the Killer Tomatoes, but with more sophisticated jargon.
Petersen's past works include the Academy Award foreign film
nominee Das Boot and the post-modernist In the Line of Fire.
Outbreak demonstrates not only Petersen's claustrophobic
directorial style, fluid camera-work and razor-sharp editing
breathlessly takes the audience from scene to scene.
Furthermore, the believable script, written by physician
Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool, contains some great one-
liners, many of them delivered by comic relief Major Casey,
played by Kevin Spacey. Stylistically, Outbreak is gripping fare.
Outbreak also imparts an intelligence and social consciousness
often lacking in other thrillers. The film's exploration of
explosive issues is exhausting. First, the morality of
biological-weapons development is brought forth, particularly the
lack of transparency and abuse of power involved in the process.
At times, the film boils down to one theme: disaffection with
military authority, who refer to virus victims as "casualties of
war." Here the privilege of being evil is given to the always-
excellent Donald Sutherland (Klute, JFK, Disclosure).
Green movement
Other causes are taken up throughout the film. One scene plays
on the AIDS analogy. Hoffman takes off his helmet to have
physical contact with Russo -- risking death but giving her the
compassion which virus patients need but often lack. By then the
film has been reduced to sentimental pulp and Russo to a damsel-
in-distress, but the gesture is admirable.
Most importantly, however, Outbreak joins the Green movement
and decries the plunder of nature by greedy humans. After all, if
the infected monkey had not been smuggled out of Africa,
Americans would just watch African casualties on the news and not
worry about an epidemic in their own backyard.
Herein lies the tragedy. Few cared about AIDS when it was an
African and homosexual disease. Fewer still care about Ebola,
even though its existence dates back to 1976, when it killed 400
people in Zaire and Sudan. Consider the statistics: doctors and
nurses, lacking in gloves and other medical equipment, comprised
two-thirds of Ebola victims at Kikwit Hospital; and Japan can
only offer financial help because there are no Japanese experts
on Ebola. Would the Japanese, or any other non-afflicted nation,
revert its policy if the disease arrived on its shores?
No doubt the cure for AIDS, or Ebola, will not be as easily
stumbled upon as in a Hollywood film. Yet the potential of
technology exists: a man on the moon is the most obvious
testimony. Political will is crucial.
It is this issue of North-South division which Outbreak
neglects. The media has picked up on the Ebola scare because of
its plague-like potential. Yet a Newsweek article declared that,
"Ebola is ill equipped to go global, and humanity is well-
equipped to stop it" -- referring to infection-control measures
such as wearing gloves, gowns, and masks. Humanity in affluent
nations, that is, not those in impoverished, developing
countries.
The film also mysteriously glosses over the racial issue.
Outbreak gives hot young actor Cuba Gooding Jr. (Boyz in the
Hood), along with Morgan Freeman, the distinction being an
African-American actor playing a major role, in a major motion
picture. When Gooding's character, Major Salt, arrives in Zaire
to find a dying village, his eyes fill with terror. Is his panic
related to sentiments of Pan-Africanism? The film doesn't say.
Similarly, Morgan Freeman's character, General Ford, seems to
feel no particular remorse at African deaths due to the virus.
Either this is a leveling American patriotism at work, or the
producers could not risk attracting a racial controversy. That
kind of media attention would be damaging at the box office.