Quarantine

Quarantine a 2008 remake of the Spanish film REC. It features the cast of, Jennifer Carpenter, Jay Hernandez, Columbus Short, Greg Germann, Steve Harris, Dania Ramirez, Rade Sherbedgia, and Johnathon Schaech. It’s a found footage horror film that is shot like a documentary. This movie was critical and commercial success by earning $ 41.3 million in the box office. This film is a made in a mockumentary approach which is a subdivision of the documentary style.

A documentary is filmed events which are generally not staged. Documentaries are generally non-fiction films. They provide a more authentic outlook to the story. Documentaries are rather hard to classify as they are a type of filmmaking. Bill Nichols however proposed a theory whereby we look at documentaries by focusing on the techniques employed by the film maker. He came up with 6 modes of representation; poetic, expository, observational, interactive, reflexive, and performative. Poetic documentaries focus on experiences, images and showing the audience the world through a different set of eyes namely the film makers. Abstract and loose with narrative, a poetic documentary can be very unconventional and experimental in form and content. This type of film stressed on the mode and tone  and is a way of representing reality via a series of fragmented visuals and subjective representations. Ambiguity is a prominent feature in these films. The ultimate goal is to create a feeling rather than a truth. The second type is called the expository documentary. This style utilizes the voice of god commentary. A disembodied narrator imparts information, facts, and figures. Films like this address the viewer directly with visible imagery and unseen information through voiceover. Next is the observational documentary, which true to its name is all about observation. No intervention by the film maker is present beside for the fact of recording the whole thing. Everything from sound to visuals are recorded from what’s available. 

The aim of this type of documentary is to have an overall effect of neutrality and non-judgemental appeal. Interactive documentary, is a subdivision where the film maker makes their presence known to the viewing audience. This is usually done by interviewing people present in the scene. The film makers power over the documentary and their ability to control the narrative is clearly exhibited. Reflexive documentaries are a style whereby the film making techniques are exposed to the audiences. This is to create a situation where the documentary’s means of revealing the truth is challenged as the techniques employed for representations are shown. These films inform and remind audiences that besides watching a certain issue they are above all watching a film that attempts to present reality. Lastly, performative documentary is when indirect method of representing reality are employed. Reenactment is such an example. This is used to evoke a more emotional and empathetic and also question the integrity of said film. Overall objectivity is compromised in  favour of projecting a perceived reality.

 Quarantine entails the story of  reporter Angela Vidal and her cameraman Scott, as they are tasked to follow fire fighters on the daily routine. Things start to go haywire as the firemen are dispatched to an apartment building where a call is received about an old lady. The old soon attacks the fire men and is soon revealed that there is a rabies like virus that zombiefies  spreading and infecting the people present in the apartment. Cut off from the outside world by the authorities, the occupants must figure a way out. Slowly as the movie progresses everyone is eventually turned into a zombie.

Quarantine is a bona fide mockumentary. This means that it is a fictional film that is shot in a style that you’re average documentary would be in. It has the few of the approaches used in documentary film making. The first being, interactive. The supposed film maker in this movie, Angela interacts heavily with her interviewees. She follows them around asks questions about their lives and is even present in most of the shots. And later when she gets trapped in the apartment, she becomes on of the main survivors who attempt to find an exit. Secondly, this film also employs observational approach and this can be seen when  Angela and Scott secretly filmed the CDC personnel drilling the skulls of the infected. This is observational as the film makers didn’t intervene and merely recorded events as they unfolded on their own. The performative representation. This is highlighted in the aspect that this fictional story was set up and filmed in a documentary way. The events did not happen and were staged to give the desired feel of a found footage film. In essence, the film makers were not trying to tell you the truth, but trying to give you an idea of it. Lastly, this film also employs the reflective representation. In this approach, the film makers are constantly making it obvious that the audiences are watching a film. They do this by highlighting techniques used to break the illusion. For example, when they were interviewing the fire men, the told them that they could edit out and cut certain voice recordings. The host also constantly reminded the cameraman to constantly record the events unfolding. And Scott also informed out loud that he was turning on the night vision to enable them to see in the dark.

In conclusion, documentary film making is very  interesting art form that bring attention onto much disregarded issues by the masses. It’s a form of activism that often fights for the voiceless. In the evolution of the modern era, mockumentaries have become popular and is done by many film makers. Its is interesting to see what other genres will coopt this mockumentary style to tell their stories.