siderite

This is yet another story about supernatural happenings in small American towns, inspired by Stephen King. Only this is not written by Stephen King and it shows. Most of the film is eerie, but also just boring. There are several characters and you see the story from their eyes, but most of them are not really interesting in any way and completely irrelevant to the story. I don't know why people rated it this high, because it just bored me to death and the reveal at the end was completely pointless.

Without spoiling it, just in case you want to watch it for yourself, the title is completely misleading and is based on just one scene in the film which misconstrues what happens in it. The child narrator... why was she there? The voice of a child which provides exposition and doesn't even appear as a characters in the film! Who was she? How did she know what happened? What happened to show don't tell? Most of the film is like that, filled with useless bits.

Bottom line: thing is the story could have been good if just edited and rearranged. As such you first don't understand what is happening, you meet a lot of people you couldn't care less about and that bring nothing to the story, then you realize what's going on and you go "oh, is that it?".

I am a sucker for medical outbreak stories and this one is one of the biggest in recent times. The film describes the quarantine of the ship Diamond Princess in Yokohama from the standpoint of DMAT, the "disaster medical assistance team" and the people who handled the situation on board, even if at the moment it was not their direct responsibility. The movie was made with the support of DMAT and the fact that some of the important events were omitted makes me question a little bit how objective the movie can be.

That being said, the movie was good! A bit too long, but it covered so much of what happened, too. Long story short, DMAT are heroes, as is the young government official helping them and in the end the cute reporter who misrepresented the facts in the beginning. No mention of the American political interference and the separate flights to fly out only the Americans on board, no mention of the American writer who criticized the quarantine conditions, but then got their due when they were fenced in by their own government's quarantine and not a lot of medical detail.

Basically, the film says that DMAT did what they could with what they had and with the best of intentions and I really believe that after watching the movie. Remember they weren't even fully trained for this, they were medical logistics people.

An interesting reason to watch this kind of stories is that they dispel the myth of the communal culture superiority in case of emergencies. Yes, people in these cultures will be very motivated to sacrifice themselves for the good of the group, but the caveat is what they define as their group. Politicians, media outlets, individual people, they all can just not care about anyone relevant if they define their group as their family at home, the political clique they belong to or the "media" as something that has to break eggs even if they don't feel like eating omelet. And that's what happens here. DMAT succeeds not because of their great Japanese nation, but almost despite it.

Particularly spooky were the digital doxing and virtual lynching of people who were determined by their community to be involved with Princess Diamond. Exposed publicly, they were refused work, child and health care and even basic services - and that included family members of medical professionals trying to solve the problem.

I am not advocating for rampant individualism here, I am just saying that it is a particular case of group oriented thinking when the group contains only one person. The problems don't magically disappears when you increase the sizes of the group.

Back to the film, the acting and directing were reasonable, many scenes were too "fat" and needing trimming and I suspect a positive bias towards the Japanese organizations involved, but I liked it and if you enjoy these kind of stories, if you take it with a grain of salt and some soy sauce, Frontline is good.

This is not only an interesting subject, but it's approached with a lot of attention and care. People are almost never cardboard, they all have feelings and motivations. There is not that much direct action, but when it is the effects are just right, threading the wire between horrifying and movie acceptable. The acting is good by all involved. The comedy never feels out of place and it complements the hard subjects approached rather than detract from them. The critique of the American society never feels heavy handed. There is sympathy even for the aholes in the movie.

After so many lazy productions, movies without soul and stories without meaning, Code 3 is damn refreshing! Finally, a good movie I could enjoy and feel invested in. Great job!

Best quote to describe this film: "This is not medicine. It's healthcare!"