Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Bird Box: Barcelona’ follows the story of a man trying to survive a catastrophic event that has claimed the lives of many people around the globe. It begins with the sudden and unexplained arrival of the creatures. Whoever sees them ends up killing themselves. To protect themselves, people use a blindfold whenever they leave the safety of their shelters. The film is set in the same universe as 2018’s ‘Bird Box’ starring Sandra Bullock.
While the premise for both films remains the same, they differ significantly. ‘Bird Box’ was focused on creating a world for the audience, introducing them to the creatures and how the world went through a downward spiral since their arrival. ‘Bird Box: Barcelona’ expands that story by introducing new elements to the world and keeping the door open for another installment. If you want to know about the timeline in which the latter film takes place, we’ve got you covered. SPOILERS AHEAD
Bird Box: Barcelona is Set in Late 2013 to 2014
‘Bird Box: Barcelona’ covers the events that take place over the course of nine months. The protagonist is a man named Sebastian, who returns home from work to discover that a strange phenomenon has gripped the world. He gets his daughter from school and decides to flee the city before things get any worse. Nine months later, we discover that most people are already dead, and Sebastian has been through a traumatic series of events.
Assuming that the creatures attacked the entire world around the same time, we can say that the events in ‘Bird Box: Barcelona’ occur sometime in late 2014. The original movie was released in 2018 and took place in the contemporary world. It shows a flashback to when the creatures first arrived and attacked the world. The story of Sandra Bullock’s character picks up five years later, which means the creatures must have come sometime in 2013.
It is confirmed that ‘Bird Box: Barcelona’ takes place in a parallel timeline, meaning that the scenes where Sebastian first finds out about the creatures also occur sometime in 2013. The story picks up nine months later, which places him sometime in 2014. Removing the flashbacks and following the linearity from the time Sebastian encounters a group of survivors, the story takes place over a couple of days, in which he discovers that he has been hallucinating the person he loves and helps others who can still be saved.
Bird Box Barcelona: Set in Spain’s Streets
As the name suggests, the Netflix movie takes place in Barcelona. Despite its setting in Spain, the film features characters of different nationalities. Claire is English, Sophie is German, and Octavio is Mexican. The group of people from different nations hints at the expansion of the story, opening the setup for other international spin-offs for the movie. It also shows us how quickly everything deteriorated once the creatures arrived. People who’d come to Barcelona as tourists didn’t get time to take a flight back home. It suggests that the situation got so worse so quickly that the government barely had any time to react and formulate a plan to save its people.
Most of the action in the film takes place on the streets of Barcelona. People move from one place to another, finding shelter wherever they can. They raid shops and stores to find food and blindfold themselves whenever they go out. No one knows if there is any help out there because even if the message was broadcast, no one got it in all the chaos that followed the creatures. Luckily, Sophie heard it before getting separated from her mother.
When the situation worsened in Barcelona, and it seemed like nothing could be done about the creatures, a group set camp at Montjuïc, a castle on the top of the hill which requires the use of a tram to enter it. It became a perfect place to turn into a haven for survivors because the entry and exit to the castle were controlled. Its fortifications didn’t allow anyone or anything to cross through. This becomes the final destination for the characters who leave the safety of their shelter to travel all the way across the city, full of dangers at every step.
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