Culture
Cinema in the time of plague: movies set during the COVID-19 lockdown
By: Gordon Briggs
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The recent film Eddington is one of a series of films that attempt to address life during the 2020 pandemic. Some of them have been thrillers, others have been offbeat documentaries, and bizarre musicals. All of these films deal with themes of isolation, social media, and loneliness in unique ways. Here are three films that explore the dark days of the COVID-19 lockdown.
The first is Kimi (2022). It’s the type of movie Hollywood used to make in abundance, a crafty and compact little thriller made for adults. So, thank the Lord, Steven Soderbergh and company concocted this tense techno-thriller to help us exorcise some of our ghosts from the pandemic. The movie begins like that ’50s movie Rear Window, with a character isolated in their apartment peeping in on their neighbor. Then, after possibly overhearing a murder, the film echoes the ’70s flick The Conversation.
When villains come calling and our hero must venture out into the pandemic-era world, the film becomes an effective look at a particular type of post-2020 paranoia. That’s what I enjoyed most about this movie. In addition to a strong turn from Zoe Kravitz, the film blends paranoid thrillers of previous decades to address the fears and anxieties of this one. Rating: ★★★1/2
The second movie is a bizarre documentary/ musical by Bo Burnham called Inside (2021). Filmed by himself while trapped inside his home during the 2020 quarantine, this experimental musical-comedy seems to take the fractured totality of social media and place it inside one man’s head. As a result, Burnham creates a series of bits where he sings about everything from race, ♫ White Woman’s Instagram, ♫ to his deteriorating mental state during quarantine, ♫All Eyes on Me♫.
One could easily accuse the film of being a self-important indulgence. However, there’s a self-deprecating quality to his narration and a welcoming tone to the way he bares his soul that you just want to keep watching and make sure this dude is okay. My favorite bit was ♫Sexting♫, a hilarious little number about the joys and perils of sexting. Rating: ★★★1/2
It’s 2021, and the world is in the middle of a lockdown. Looking to pass the time, some avid gamers attempt to mount a production of Hamlet. The only difference is that they are going to do it inside the video game Grand Theft Auto. The result was Grand Theft Hamlet, a smart, lively, and funny work that turned out to be both an interesting video game flick and an engaging documentary, and not a bad Shakespeare film either. Taking place entirely inside GTA but voiced by the actual gamers, we see a small group of people desperately trying to use the medium to audition actors, grapple with Shakespearean text, and mount the entire production using only what’s available in the video game.
What’s fascinating is the different layers of textuality that start to emerge. Not only is GTA a surprisingly apt setting for one of Shakespeare’s most violent plays, but I also like how the gamers enter an artificial world of GTA to be actors who must pretend to be “players” in Hamlet’s play. What gives the story a surprising emotional content is the specter of lockdown. These gamers want to perform Hamlet not just because they love it, but because they want to connect with other people. Rating: ★ ★★1⁄2