POST 25: Life and art: the enemy within

I am watching Cordon, a reasonable-standard thriller from Belgium, playing on BBC 4.

It works with the scare tactics usual to this genre: a series of rapid deaths occur, a virus is suspected, the Government  identifies ‘patient zero' as an Afghani refugee. A whole region of the city is cordoned off, thousands trapped inside. Central characters have lovers trapped on the inside. A Lord of the Flies situation grows inside the cordon: both the best and worst of people arises.

And then the twist: two local medical researchers seem to have died of the virus before the Afghani came down with any symptoms. By episode 3 of 10 it’s already obvious that the canker was released A) as part of a terrible experiment in social control, B) as self-aggrandisment in the medical and political arena; or C), by not wanting to admit a mistake in protocol has taken place. Any or all are possible. The programme is violent and people are cruel. Some lives are expendable; whilst you can guess whose are not.  By Episode 4, it's not yet quite certain Who's on first, Watt's on second or third in the guilty stakes, but it hardly matters: it's already obvious that the real canker is not the virus arrived from another country, but the enemy within. 

In a way, it doesn’t matter what happens now in Episdoes 9 and 10.  It doesn't matter whether the acting or the script improves or becomes even more predictable. Really, the narrative is about someone playing with our fear of outsiders, the alien, and whether those breeding the canker will ever look at the consequences of their actions.

So what is this moral tale? I guess I will watch Episode 10, but I'm sure to be disapppointed—just as disappointed as when I read of the consistent failure  of logic and compassion for refugees both here and back home.

c. Z Soboslay 2015.