Achi news desk-
Director Alex Garland wants to prove that you can make a movie about a modern American Civil War without being political. And he wants to do it in an election year.
The question is: why?
His new film “Civil War,” which opens Friday, follows an unlikely group of journalists as they make their way from New York to Washington, D.C., as the rebel “Western Forces,” made up of California and Texas, close in on the capital city. Two of those journalists – Lee (Kirsten Dunst), a legendary conflict photographer, and Joel (Wagner Mora), a writer – hope to get the last interview and image of the President of the United States (Nick Offerman) when they arrive, before the commander-in-chief is dragged from his post and killed.
The battle lines force the group to take a circuitous route, along which they encounter the horrific, often random violence that has engulfed the country in the midst of internal conflict.
It’s a powerful film, which Garland said he made to emphasize the importance of journalism: to remind us that much of what we know about the world is a direct result of journalists telling and showing us what’s happening at any given moment. Even if their lives and/or mental health are at stake.
This is an admirable and important goal, especially in our historical moment. But “Western Powers”? What now?
As many have pointed out since the “Civil War” trailer dropped, it’s hard to get invested in the problems of four little people when you’re busy trying to imagine what set of circumstances — beyond, say, an alien invasion — would forge an alliance between California and Texas, resulting in a second breakaway faction identified as the “Florida Alliance.” .
Especially one that puts these countries at odds with the president, and presumably, with what’s left of the US military.
I guess the people who fight on the president’s side are what’s left of the military; It’s not exactly clear.
Much is unclear in “Civil War”. It’s intentional. Garland is not interested in exploring the reason why Western powers came together to attack the White House beyond hinting at the social currents that might make modern civil war possible: racism, nationalism, isolationism, apathy.
But social currents do not start a war; Organized armed forces and resisters do. We never learn the cause of the conflict, the president’s ideology, or any of his policies beyond his reliance on the mechanisms of authoritarianism: he’s killed journalists, bombed American citizens, disbanded the FBI, and given that he’s serving his third term, apparently suspended the Constitution.
We also don’t find out what the Western powers and the Florida Alliance hope to achieve by overthrowing him – we assume they’re fighting for democracy, but that could be wishful thinking.
Instead, the film focuses on the determined nature of the four main characters – the fearsome Lee; her young, enthusiastic and initially unwanted help, Jessie (Kylie Spenny); Joel the thrill addict; and Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), the aging reporter who has seen it all.
They are a compelling band, expertly played and held together by the belief that their job is not to judge what they encounter but to record it for the enlightenment of others.
A scene from “Civil War”.
(A24)
Their “objectivity” is so thorough that they apparently have no interest in context or meaning, i.e. the clearly cataclysmic series of events leading up to this moment. There is little discussion about what Yoel wants to ask the president upon finding him or what purpose such an interview would serve beyond being the last. (To be fair, things have devolved to the point where no news outlet seems concerned about scoops or page views; Lee and Joel just hope to record history.)
Despite spending hours in the car watching one apocalyptic scene after another, none of our heroes is moved to consider moments when all of this might have been avoided or ponder the future of the nation: Do the powers of the West have a plan beyond the removal of the president? Is there an acceptable vice president or speaker of the house waiting in the wings? Does Congress even exist? Who even leads the forces of the West?
And how can the families of Lee and Jesse, not to mention a store in the town the team passes through on their journey, manage to keep pretending that “none of this is happening”?
“Civil War” is basically a road movie. Its tone is not so much apolitical – Garland is clearly anti-war – as post-political. When the group finds themselves in the middle of a firefight in Christmas Village, they ask one of the soldiers they meet there, one dressed in camouflage and with brightly dyed hair, what’s going on.
Someone is shooting at us, he answers. And that’s it.
The film tries to keep the audience in the travel bubble of the characters – despite being on a journalistic mission, they are apparently too exhausted and overwhelmed to think about anything but the next set of potential dangers. However, when one shocking spectacle follows another, it seems irresponsible not to wonder, and continue to wonder, what the hell just happened.
And why is no one talking about it?
Very quickly, Garland’s refusal to explain seems less an artistic choice than an ill-considered evasion, like Nikki Haley initially refusing to recognize slavery as the real cause of the Civil War. Especially considering some of the film’s imagery evokes recent events, including the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Varieties of fascism, both right and left, existed in America long before the rise of the MAGA nation. But in the wake of January 6, and with Trump’s violent rhetoric once again on full display as he campaigns to return to the White House, one can’t help but see “Civil War” as a cinematic vision of what could happen if Trump succeeds.
In this case, it seems worth noting that the defenders of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies have a clear ideological set. (The film’s most horrifying scene, an echo of the “real Americans” celebration so popular among right-wing Republicans, is presented as an independent act, perhaps detached from what is happening in the halls of power or on the front lines. In real life, the “us vs. them” hostility of white supremacy has a political home Recognize.)
To force the very real political divisions plaguing this nation into an obscure subtext doesn’t even serve the purportedly pro-journalistic nature of “Civil War.”
In an attempt to keep his film “above” the current political struggle, Garland approaches the bipartisan ism that too many journalists are expected (or have chosen) to adopt in an attempt to prove impartiality. But the arbitrary demand for “balance” should not be confused with objectivity, which requires, among many qualities, an understanding that not all things are equal in importance, relevance or, if it comes to that, blame.
The fact that we are, in many ways, still fighting the actual Civil War, including the recent conflicts over how slavery, the Confederacy, and the war itself should be presented in classrooms, history books, and civic life, demonstrates how important it is to understand how events, ideologies, and people ignited that disaster—or any disaster. By suggesting instead that anything (or nothing) could lead to the collapse of a nation, the destruction of its most iconic landmarks and the forcible removal of a president, “Civil War” does an injustice to its audience and the work of those it hopes to honor.
Ignorance is not the same as objectivity either.
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