First of all, you should know what you're getting into when you see this movie. A plot summary is misleading, but here it is anyway: Four people with unexplained illnesses find a secret lab in the desert, where a scientist is trying to develop a "good" virus. This virus will invade a human body, driving out any other illness. So the only symptom of this virus would be to make people healthy.
So far, all of the tests have been fatal.
The government finds out and takes over the lab to shut down the dangerous experiments. Four people (three of them were accidentally infected with the latest test batch) flee across the desert.
They do not know what will happen - will the virus kill them, will the government? Sounds like an action movie, right? It is very definitely not a run-from-the-shadowy-government action movie.
The film has a slow, contemplative pace. There is an almost surreal quality about it. The film opens with videotaped interviews of the patients. These grainy, extreme closeups are intimate and dreamlike.
As they travel into the desert, the landscape seems unreal, with saturated colors and polarized skies. There are thunderclouds on the horizon, pouring down tremendous amounts of rain very far away.
The musings (in voice-over) of the uninfected man cover ideas about the speed of light, about the chemical composition of primordial oceans, and the pain of connecting to other people.
These four broken people are healed - they become radiant.
So, in short, if you are interested in ideas, and how we fit in the universe, and in finding a way to overcome the fear of opening yourself to others, this is a film for you.
It takes the time to slow you down, then rewards your patience.
