No Time to Die (2021)

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The James Bond film 'No Time to Die' was finally released after much delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I did get a chance to watch the movie and was quite taken up by it. Being the swansong of Daniel Craig's James Bond, the movie would have definitely made some fans teary-eyed. But, what appealed to me is the level of emotions that came up at the climax.
I could really feel one with James Bond towards the end when he cannot go back to be with his loved ones (in spite of him saving the day again!). After being poisoned by Safin, Bond cannot come close to his those whom he loved lest he kills them with a virus embedded in him. The whole plot itself feels very relatable and comes at a time when the world itself battles a deadly virus. The pandemic has indeed taught us how important is the need for physical company in our life. The border restrictions, isolation, and social distancing have put many at a distance seeing them as potential threats. I quite feel one with these people as human contact, I believe, is very essential for every human being.
Psychologists who have studied the impact of physical closeness on group bonding find that it is higher than having mere communication via text or social media. Human touch is a way of communication as the two people's neural network connections begin to respond to each other's suggestions and conversations. I see the relevance of this in our present situation. It is difficult for anyone to meet their friends and family members abroad with every country setting in their own set of protocols to curb the virus. This gets incredibly complex in the vast global village that we live in.
The new variant of the virus seems very similar to the infection that prevented James Bond from reaching out to meet his beloved ones. Lockdowns and curfews are threatening to come up again with the rise of the Omicron variant. This would eventually curb the primacy of human touch once more. We cannot leave and give up like James Bond (as he doesn't see any solution to his problem), but rather, we need to be patient and wait; wait in hope as we try to find a way to get back to normalcy. 

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