Catch - An Unrealistic Reality
- The Crux
- Apr 17, 2020
- 4 min read
By Fatima Azhar
Catch is a short film which once would’ve seemed outlandish and unrealistic but now - in the current scenario – has a greater impact. It presents the idea of being quarantined inside houses to protect against something so small that it cannot even be seen and which does not have a cure.
The enemy is invisible and the war deadly.
The story starts off with a little girl, drawing inside a locked room. As the door opens we see that the room is covered in plastic, all the furniture, curtains, everything is covered. The girl has prominent dark circles and looks sick.
Her father who has brought her food has covered is wearing a face mask and as soon as the little girl gets up he quickly closes the door apologizing and telling her to stay back and not come near him. She promises she won’t and he walks in and puts the food on one side.
Amy gives her father a piece of cardboard, which has a drawing of the family on it with the words: Daddy, Mummy, Me, Ken and Teddy. And at this point we find out the name of the movie, “Catch”
This is a story about Tom and his young daughter Amy who are quarantined together in their home in a world, where diseases are now antibiotic and treatment resistant which has led to many deaths and transmission of disease from person to person has increased. It is a lethal pandemic and the world is suffering.
Tom’s family too, has suffered a blow as his wife and son have both been infected, isolated and eventually taken away by the authorities. As Tom and his young daughter try to find some semblance of stability in their lives while protecting themselves from the virus, Tom cooking too much accidentally, dealing with rats in the house, washing hands regularly; they seem to fall into a rhythm.
But Amy is still a little girl, she wants to live the life she did before, she wants to go out on the swing in her backyard and most of all, she misses her mother and younger brother. To remember him by, she has kept his teddy bear, which he had till the moment the authorities took him away, hidden from the eyes of her father and continues to sleep with it at night and play with it during the day, always making sure to hide it again when her father comes to her room. And that is how she gets sick.
It is at this point that Tom has to make a tough choice; should he give her up to the authorities who will take her away? Or should he risk getting infected like the rest of his family has been? Would his life mean anything at all if his daughter left him too?
This short film is written and directed by Paul Cooke and Dominic Rees-Roberts and explores familial bond in the most dire circumstances. It’s about the relationship between a parent and a child, the most natural of bonds to exist.
Lollie McKenzie as Amy, the little girl who misses her brother and just wants to go play on the swing outside as the prolonged pandemic and the resulting quarantine has made her restless and Henry Douthwaite as Tom, the worried, over-protective father, who has already lost his wife and son to this terrible disease and now fears he will lose his daughter as well, are profoundly moving and impactful.
There is no exaggerated emotion in this short, everything plays out quietly, the most subtle expressions taken care of, the minutest details prominent. Even the environment – which is a house in this case - is muted and has a cool tone to it, an almost eerie feel of isolation and an echo of what it once was.
The first aspect to note here is the absence of everyday hygiene behaviors, like washing our hands before we eat and the way we manage disease. A prominent part of this short was antibiotic resistance which could become a real problem considering how frequently people –especially in third world countries – are prescribed antibiotic medicines.
According to the WHO, Antibiotics are medicines used to prevent and treat bacterial infections in humans and animals. When bacteria changes in response to the use of these medicines, it becomes antibiotic resistant which makes infections caused by these bacteria harder to treat making medical costs higher, prolonging hospital stays and increasing mortality rate.
The World Health Organization recommends not using antibiotics unless prescribed by a certified health professional, making sure to follow the health worker’s advice, never using leftover antibiotics and preventing infections by regularly washing hands, preparing food hygienically, avoiding close contact with sick people and keeping vaccination up to date.
But what is important is to look at this short film and remember that where on one side there exist the scientific aspects of disease and pandemics, the numbers, the statistics, facts and figures, there is another side to it. That of the emotional consequences, where people have to make tough choices for themselves and their families.
What once appeared to be an abstract question: “What are you willing to do for your family?” is turning into a reality for many people all over the world. As stories pour in of families self-isolating from each other to people dying alone in the hospitals all alone for fear of infecting their loved ones, to doctors choosing to not go to their homes while they fight this pandemic, tough choices are being made everywhere as we speak.
But what choice will Tom make? Will he let his daughter go where his wife and son have already gone? Or will her give her the love and attention she craves and take her out to the swing to play and risk getting infected himself? Will Tom let his fatherhood win or will he continue to be the responsible adult he is being? What does he really have left to live for if his daughter dies too, leaving him all alone in the world?
To find out watch the short film:
Fatima Azhar
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