An Unfinished Film

A film crew reunites near Wuhan, China in January of 2020 to resume production on a film that was interrupted a decade earlier, only to have to stop again in the face of a mandatory lockdown when an unknown pathogen sparks an emergency. The fictional film is shot in the style of a documentary and even presented as such despite many scenes that could never have been shot as they are under the circumstances depicted. Director, co-writer Lou Ye uses outtakes and behind-the-scenes footage from his previous films to further blur the lines of reality and creation, but the docufiction approach only serves to heighten the picture's artificial aspects, hindering it's ability to authentically capture the feeling of being trapped at the centers of the COVID-19 outbreak.