An Exercise In Nonsense

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

This exciting, low-budget Argentine film by Nicolas Goldbart revolves a young couple, Coco (Daniel Hendler) and Pipi (Jazmin Stuart) living in a small, high middle class apartment complex in present-day Buenos Aires City. Suddenly, the whole edifice where they live is under quarantine due to a strange high-mortality epidemic that affects the lungs of its victims. Thus, Coco and Pipi find themselves prisoners of their own apartment. The same goes for their colorful neighbors. All residents, the local sanitary authorities declare, must remain in their apartments until the quarantine is over. None knows how long would that be. Soon food supplies start to run short. Internet is down; so is television. Things take a turn for the worse and the disease becomes a global pandemic. Authorities everywhere –we learn-- are overwhelmed in a matter of days or perhaps weeks. As millions of thousands of people begin to die worldwide, a state of complete chaos and anarchy follows. A maximum stage alert (Phase 6) is declared by the World Health Organization. Yet things get even worse. The apartment complex mirrors society as a whole as the desperate and paranoid neighbors start making alliances and turning on each other with deadly intentions . . .

The production of this movie was great. For the exception of one very unrealistic firefight scene, if you watch the movie you should know the one i'm talking about without me spoiling it. Now the effects, and actors were great, but it's time for the bad. The writing in this movie was just the worst of the works. The worst thing is that throughout the whole movie the wife is acting like a total b!tch towards her husband as if he's coming in late from bars every night. I don't exactly know if it was written for her to act this way, or if it was the actor herself that made it seem this way. Either way it bothered me throughout the entire movie. The second bad writing part is of the husband. With just half the sh!t he sees in the movie a real person would have spoken the truth to the women they were married to, but not this guy he doesn't share anything with her until he has to. Again even after he does share her attitude still seems that of a wife whose husband keeps coming in late at night from bars. So the whole thing about this is that the husband and wife seem not to care about the epidemic even after people start dieing. Which is just the worst writing for a family of two about to have a child. Everyone knows that any right minded pregnant women would be taking every precaution to keep her child safe, but in this movie the family seemed to be as worried about getting the virus as dead people are of getting fat. It makes as much sense as the sentence I wrote just before this one. 5/10 stars and it only did that good because the production was actually well done.

A block of flats is quarantined off as a result of a deadly virus that is sweeping the world. The inhabitants quickly succumb to psychological deterioration as paranoia and claustrophobia set in.This Argentinean epidemic movie is pretty impressive. Its setting is necessarily limited but the film-makers make the most of it. The narrative is powered mainly by a decent array of characters, well played by the entire cast. The dramatic tensions in Phase 7 come not so much from the virus but from the interactions between the neighbours. As time goes on the microcosmic society of the tower block breaks down and primal instincts begin to take over. The scenario is not unlike one you would imagine J.D. Ballard coming up with, with its look at social norms deteriorating rapidly as they are tested under unusual conditions. The movie benefits too from a nice moody soundtrack that recalls the work of John Carpenter. There is at least one very well executed – and unexpected – gore scene too. In fact, the movie moves into some quite tense thriller territory in the final third. So overall, it tries to make the most of its basic set-up and deliver some suspense and atmosphere along the way. Phase 7 is a very worthwhile psychological sci-fi thriller.

I just came out of the cinema, had dinner with a girl, and we started talking about Fase 7, we are both Argentinian, she didn't like it, i thought it was very good. Daniel Hendler is a very good actor, who I've seen in other Argentinian movies, he acts really well and is always funny, even without trying. At some point it resembles the movie QUARANTINE, but with a totally different approach, im not saying it is a masterpiece, but you really won't be disappointed. Yayo surprised me in a very good way, here we are used to see him perform in some funny sketches, in Fase 7 he is hilarious but you really can not tell he is an amateur in the movies. Anyway, if you are guy, you will probably be at the edge of you seat waiting to see what happens next, or the next part where you will laugh, if you are girl, please don't try to overthink it, don't relate it to the society or anything like that, just seat back and enjoooooy.