Civil War Alex Garland is definitely a visually hypnotizing film. Post-apocalyptic States have never looked on the screen so frighteningly and convincingly, the apocalypse here is something tangible, imagined here and now, without alien invasions, zombie epidemics, or even utmost climate disasters.
Garland and his crew, led by operator Rob Hardy, carry images known from Apocalypse Time, Helicopter on fire is Hurt LockerIn a reality devastated by America's hopeless conflict. In the poignant final series we see Washington, with its buildings symbols of American civilian religion, specified as the White home or Lincoln Mausoleum, looking like 1 of the capitals of the global South, in which the American army has conducted its armed actions over the last decades.
What is this war about?
Simultaneously Civil War It reminds us of a dream that, at the minute we dream it, seems highly wise and deep, but erstwhile we wake up, erstwhile we effort to analyse it, it turns into a string of incomprehensible, blurry images with no meaning.
In the beginning movie of the scene waged by the war against his nation, the president speaks of the large triumph that loyal forces have had over the rebellious Western Forces: "Some already call it the top triumph in history." These words are clearly associated with Trump's language: it's his rhetoric, his phrase, his melody. As we find out, the president of Civil War He most likely unconstitutionally secured a 3rd term, and in consequence to the conflict it caused, he began utilizing troops, including aviation, against American citizens. At the same time, president Nick Offerman clearly avoids Trump parody in his creation – we don't watch the sketch from Saturday Night Live in the postapo convention.
Garland's movie alternately suggests relationships with circumstantial events and themes from current American politics and distances itself from them. erstwhile we effort to reconstruct the political dimension shown on the screen of the conflict, we find that politics in the movie just doesn't make sense – unless we consider that action Civil War It is not in the close future, but in an alternate universe, in which there are very akin to the present States, and at the same time differing from these real key political details.
On the 1 hand, we have in the movie a clearly "trumpian" president, on the another hand a revolt against him is led by the alliance of California and Texas – 1 of the most liberal and conservative states. fresh York appears loyal to Washington, from which 4 journalists depart through Pennsylvania and West Virginia to the American capital.
The America they traverse is simply a fallen state. There are always bloody fighting in it, but it is not known who precisely is fighting what they are fighting for, to whom the troops are subject if they are subject to anyone another than their front commanders.
In the strongest scene in the movie 4 heroes and 2 colleagues they meet on the road, he hits an armed irregular ward – possibly any local militia – that fills a mass grave full of bodies. The situation abruptly becomes deadly to our heroes. erstwhile they effort to translate “we are Americans”, the seemingly commanding man – sensational in a fewer minutes function Jesse Plemons – asks “well, but what Americans”? In the planet Civil War There is no good answer to this question, the lines of conflict and the loyalty created by it are besides complicated and tangled. They are not aware of the professionally reported war heroes, and the more there is no chance of seeing them.
According to any reviewers, this ambiguity of policy Civil War whether the fact that in places it seems simply meaningless is simply a large advantage of Garland's film, allowing him to distance himself from besides easy publicity. I don't agree with that. I'm closer to voices like the Andrew Marantza in "New Yorker", convincing that the obscure image of the political background of the conflict we see on the screen is the biggest problem Civil War.
Marantz accuses Garland, without calling it direct cyclicalism: the manager wants to comment on the large social emotion, not only behind the ocean, polarization, but at the same time he is incapable to address the circumstantial polarizing issues of the American society today, as if he were afraid to alienate any of the possible audience. Regardless of the artistic-marketing strategy of the director, it is hard to show a sensible civilian war, without showing the conflict lines that form it, standing behind individual parties of interests and ideology. erstwhile we extract a image of civilian war from this context, we will only have generic, reasonably obvious, cognitively uninteresting images of violence.
Garland's strategical decision to clear the movie as much as possible of the context makes it, though Civil War with its poignant images, it is surely not a bad movie, it is not a prominent work or at least truly important, what possible it had to be if in the subject of polarization it became active on a somewhat deeper level.
Who are these pictures for?
Civil War However, it is not only a movie about a society brought to a state of civilian war and the collapse of American democracy, but besides about journalism. The choice of journalists as heroes is not accidental, the main axis of the storyline, alongside the journey to the "American core of darkness", is simply a subject of the relation between an experienced photographer, reporting in her career a multitude of war conflicts, Lee and a young girl dreaming of entering the profession, Jessie.
Lee takes the function of mentor to a young adept. She is taught by a journalistic workshop and – more importantly – an ethos. It sensitizes the girl that erstwhile confronted with scenes of violent conflicts she must keep maximum distance and objectivity, she cannot follow her moral courts, follow her compassion – her work is to evidence as much objectively as possible what is happening.
It is besides crucial that Lee and Jessie work in a medium. It is an analog, black and white photograph. A average referring to the pre-digit era, to the media before the Internet, from erstwhile large media organizations were attached to the rule of objectivity, did not service as tools to boost social polarization.
At the same time, this anthem for independent journalism, presented by Garland, is not so clear. Watching Lee and Jessie's work, I kept asking myself: who are they taking these pictures for? Who's gonna show them? About the accompanying 2 photographers on an age travel journalist, Sammy, we hear he works for “the remainder of what is left of the fresh York Times”. At least in the United States, institutions forming a public sphere in which the ethos, as Lee presents, would make sense, would cease to be or become a shadow of themselves. Is the public speaking with assault rifles curious in independent relations with their own conflict?
Perhaps the photographs of Lee and Jessie are directed to global public opinion? Unfortunately, in Civil War The impact of the collapse of the States on the destiny of another liberal democracies will not be seen. The abrupt collapse of American hegemony would immediately be utilized by China and Russia, it is not known how much democratic-liberal order would be able to defend itself in Europe and especially in our region. It is simply a pity that Garland's movie absolutely does not see the possible global repercussions of the collapse of the States, that in its view it remains profoundly provincial.
Accompanying 2 photographers, writer Joel, dreaming of having an interview with the president before he is killed by the winning Western Force, seems unhealthyly excited by the conflicts and acts of force that 4 heroes encounter in his path. Watching further images mutilated by body bullets, fighting in urban and agrarian space, dead faces fixed on black and white movie tape, we wonder whether ultimately, with all noble intentions and ethos, what Jessie and Lee produce is not pornography of war force and death.
Or at least – as under certain conditions, does a healthy political conflict not transform into toxic polarization, leading in utmost cases even to civilian war, so full of even the best intentions of war journalism after the dissolution of a certain liberal media order will not change into a pornography of death, unhealthy selling force to itself? This is possibly the most interesting reflection in Garland's movie – unfortunately, only images of force will yet stay from the movie itself. As strong a movie as they were, I hoped for more.
