'Sløborn': Series blurs pandemic fantasy and reality
Torsten Landsberg
July 28, 2020
In the new TV series "Sløborn," a sudden pandemic holds a North Sea island community captive. But why are viewers indulging in this and other plague disaster stories in the midst of an actual pandemic?
Image: ZDF und Stefan Erhard
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The catastrophe approaches slowly. A sailing boat drifts without a driver towards a North Sea island whose inhabitants are still busy with their everyday lives.
And then the first cold symptoms appear. Nobody suspects the cause, even if there are already reports in the news about a virus in Asia — the fictitious pigeon flu. The scenario now sounds very familiar.
The series Sløborn, commissioned by ZDFneo, tells in eight parts how a virus spreads around the world while focusing on one small community. Conceived by director Christian Alvart, who also helmed the Netflix series Dogs of Berlin, it was written and shot before the outbreak of the coronavirus. Now it appears to have benefited from the real pandemic, having since generated huge interest.
Rise of a disaster film subgenre
Pandemic disaster films are nothing new. In 1950, the classic film noir masterwork Panic in the Streets showed New Orleans gripped by a pneumonia contagion. In the 1990s, various movies looked at the AIDS crisis and how it affected entire demographics.
More recent incantations of the subgenre such as Outbreak: Anatomy of a Plague (2010) and Contagion (2011) have found renewed interest. There has been a strong uptick of that particular movie on streaming services, as the coronavirus pandemic has spread.
Starring Matt Damon, Kate Winslet and Gwyneth Paltrow and directed by Steven Soderbergh, Contagion climbed to the top ten on iTunes in the spring, trended on Amazon Prime and was the most-watched film from the Warner Bros studio's collection after the Harry Potter series.
Steven Soderbergh's "Contagion" starring Kate Winslet attracted renewed demand on streaming services thanks to the coronavirusImage: picture-alliance/Everett Collection
Reality on the screen
Among the viewers newly attracted by the pandemic was US director Barry Jenkins, who won the Oscar for best picture for Moonlight in 2017: "I paid $12.99 to watch a ten-year-old movie. I've never done that before," he said in The New York Times.
"It scared me," he added with regard to watching the eerie similarities to the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic.
"I was amazed at how visionary this film was," Eckhard Pabst, film scholar at the Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, told DW about Contagion. Parallels between film and reality can help people cope in the midst of a pandemic, he added: "The audience sees: The course is not chaotic, the actions follow a plan. Despite all the horror, something calming can come from such material."
12 films on the phenomenon of time
How do filmmakers deal with time in their stories? As our routines and perception of time are disrupted by the coronavirus crisis, here are a few film recommendations with which to slow down at home.
Image: Imago/United Archives
A journey through space and time: 2001: 'A Space Odyssey'
For many film fans, the definitive space epic. Stanley Kubrick's philosophical film trip remains as fascinating today as it was when it came out in 1968. It begins in primitive times on Earth, continues in space and ends in a psychedelic frenzy of color. In these times of crisis, the cinematic journey through time and space offers a lot to ponder about.
Image: Imago/United Archives
A look in the mirror: 'Paris, Texas'
The winner of Cannes' Palme d'Or in 1984, Wim Wenders' "Paris, Texas" is a classic of "slow cinema." Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) attemps to reconnect with his own past in the middle of the Texas desert. Memorable for its spectacular cinematography, this meditative work also explores existential questions — definitely inspiring in times of uncertainty.
Image: picture alliance / kpa
Expanding time: 'Marseille'
"This director is something special," wrote the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" newspaper about German director Angela Schanelec, following the release of her film "Marseille" in 2004. She "sets up rooms like a stage, and allows images to stand like photographs, thereby sending, in these minimalist settings, the viewer's eye on a journey." Schanelec is the master of reduction.
Image: peripherfilm/R.Vorschneider
French slowness: 'La belle noiseuse'
An artist paints a portrait of his female model: That's basically all that happens in Jacques Rivette's film "La belle noiseuse" (The Beautiful Troublemaker). Is it possible to turn such a plot into a 240-minute film? The French director provided his answer in 1991. Starring Emmanuelle Beart and Michel Piccoli, the work is about the mechanisms of art — and the passing of time.
Image: picture alliance/kpa
'Les petites fugues' from Switzerland
What do you do when retirement gives you a lot of time and you're open to new experiences? Swiss documentarian Yves Versin made his only feature film, "Les petites fugues" (Little Escapes), in 1979. It's the story of Pipe (Michel Robin l.), who after spending his whole life working on the farm, discovers the joys of traveling. He buys a moped — and goes on a helicopter trip to the Zugspitze.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives
Film philosophy from Greece: 'Eternity and a Day'
Just like many major early thinkers, one of the greatest philosophers of cinema was from Greece. The works of Theodoros Angelopoulos (1935-2012) were characterized by long tracking shots, little dialogue and extended minimalist scenes. The titles of his films reflected his approach: Above is a still from " Eternity and a Day" (1998) with Bruno Ganz.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives
Master of tranquility: Yasihuro Ozu's ' Tokyo Story'
To many cinephiles, he's a cinema god. Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963) worked with the concepts of time and silence like no other. In films such as "Tokyo Story," in which an elderly couple visits their children, he portrayed the lives of his protagonists with great sensitivity and humanity. Ozu was a master of mindfulness.
Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkowski (1939-1986) was another philosopher in the director's chair. Before his early death due to lung cancer, he directed seven feature films, all of them masterpieces. Like Ozu, Tarkowski was renowned for his slow-paced narrative style. His science-fiction art film "Stalker" (1979) was incredibly influential in the history of cinema.
With a lawnmower through the US: 'The Straight Story'
David Lynch, the master of absurdist horror, surprised his fans with an exceptionally straight story in 1999, as the title of the biographical film indicates. It portrays an ageing man who decides to visit his estranged brother, traveling 400 kilometers on his lawnmower tractor to do so. "The Straight Story" is another slow story.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Senator
Fine beauty: 'In the Mood for Love'
A man and a woman who know that their spouses are having an affair develop their own strong link: Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai offered a film that seduced film fans and critics alike in 2000 with "In the Mood for Love." The cinematography, the music and the poetry of the work redefined the concept of film aesthetics.
Image: picture-alliance/Mary Evans Picture Library/Ronald Grant Archive
An animal's world: 'Gunda'
To conclude this list, two films that haven't been released in theaters yet: "Gunda," by Russian director Viktor Kosakovskiy, offers a satisfying challenge to cinephiles who enjoy philosophical films. Following its world premiere at the Berlinale, it is set for theatrical release in August. A 90-minute silent film on a sow and her young piglets? Incredibly, it's exceptional cinema.
Image: Egil Haskjold Larsen/Sant & Usant
A tender Western: 'First Cow'
In the US and Canada, Kelly Reichardt's film "First Cow" had its start in cinemas shortly before the coronavirus outbreak forced them to close. It might get a better run in Europe later on this year. Also featured at the Berlinale, the film is a slow-paced Western telling the story of two outsiders in Oregon at the end of the 19th century — a surprisingly appeasing take on the genre.
Image: Allyson Riggs/A24
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Entertainment before education
In numerous disaster films, the aspect of human misconduct contributes to the spread of the disease. Eckhard Pabst believes that this is not an educational measure when watching: "Films can reinforce a discourse, for example about wearing masks. But this will not change the behavior of the viewers in the long term."
Even with realistic material or content, he says most viewers are still mainly interested in entertainment.
But Scott Z. Burns, author of the Contagion screenplay, said he wrote the film out of real concerns about a potential outbreak in the US at that time already: "I remember being most concerned that the spread of misinformation could be as prolific and dangerous as the virus," he told The New York Times.
The jury is out on the audience and critical response to Sløborn, with only half of the eight part series having been broadcast so far.
The pandemic thriller is, however, chiefly meant to be a form of entertainment, and is thus somewhat divorced from the current reality of COVID-19. In Christian Alvart's series, the military has to quickly and sometimes violently intervene in Sløborn to control the outbreak.
Fortunately we are not there yet with the coronavirus.
