The end of the world, in real time

The master of French criticism André Bazin always defended the sequence shot as the cinematic resource that, by maintaining the continuity of space-time without the intervention of editing, could bring a film closest to reality. What would the co-founder of Cahiers du Cinéma, of the twistedly exhibitionist drift that this technique would be taking and, above all, of how contemporary cinema has contaminated it with digital effects until it has taken it to the realm of the impossible? Surely he would turn in his grave if he heard echoes of a title like MadS, which tells the story of the emergence of a potentially apocalyptic epidemic outbreak live, through a single, hour-and-a-half-long sequence shot.

Or, who knows, perhaps he would give his approval to director David Moreau's idea, which does manage to channel the sense of unpredictability that, according to Bazin, is inseparable from reality. Be that as it may, and beyond the logistical choreography it entails, there is no doubt that the formal choice of MadS It fits like a glove with the feverish and chaotic tone required by a story that pivots between the three vertices of a love triangle during a night of partying and violence in which the effects of a reddish drug mix with the transmission of a virus that turns the infected into bloodthirsty beasts; euphoric enough to make one think of an apocryphal sequel to [REC] imagined by Gaspar Noé.