Plague Inc.

Plague Inc. is an avant-garde attempt that blends eerie visuals with existential narration to capture the disorientation of prolonged isolation. The young Brazilian filmmaker Nina Garcia opens the 3-minute short film with a detached, neutral sounding computer voice derived from the track “Fitter Happier” in Radiohead renowned album, OK Computer (1997), “Fitter, happier, more productive, comfortable” (Plague Inc. 00:01–00:08). This music reference satires the idea of neoliberal wellness, pointing out the contradiction between society’s obsession with self-optimization and the self-sabotaging pandemic reality. Garcia then films herself watching the iconic Matrix (1999) scene where Neo chooses the red pill, symbolically likening lockdown to a distorted, simulated reality. This is followed by a news clip showing a government official awkwardly putting on a face mask, underscoring the chaotic public response. Over these visuals,  visuals, Garcia’s voice narrates. “It’s been months since the beginning. I haven’t seen you for so long. I don’t know who I am anymore. I am afraid I don’t exist” (00:31–00:57), as she touches her reflection and distorts her face, embodying an identity crisis. The subsequent scene then shows a close-up of repeatedly and obsessively washing one’s hands. Here, Garcia visualizes the pandemic-induced existential crisis with her own sensory experience and physicality.

“I am afraid to breathe too much. And I end up breathing too little. I am trying my best to stay sane” (Plague Inc. 01:36–01:56), Garcia confesses in voiceover, articulating the claustrophobic anxiety of endless lockdown. Animated images of the virus begin to appear on the screen, in grotesquely saturated colours. Garcia then pictures herself lying relaxingly on the beach, a green, squirming virus becomes the sun. The juxtaposition of these eerie montages parodies the pandemic hypervigilance and psychosis. Overall, there is no logical flow among the sequence of images, nor a linear narrative. Instead, Garcia explores experimental filmmaking techniques through surreal visual languages and presents a psychological reflection of the lockdown through stream of consciousness. A pulsating, trance-like techno score accompanies the visuals, amplifying the film’s hypnotic atmosphere. The final line returns to “Fitter Happier”: “A pig, in a cage, on antibiotics” (Plague Inc. 02:36–02:42), which encapsulates the film’s central metaphor—a pandemic experience defined by restriction, medication, and a blurred sense of reality. The short film is a sensory and psychological impression of what it feels like to survive a medicalized crisis.