Paradoxical as it may sound, Civil War (2024), recently released in cinemas, resembles a musical, although it is not a musical – brutal scenes of war playing out like a dance, one after the other, faces lit up in dramatic horror and anguish, while calm indie folk music plays in the background, and in some places colorful details shine through, such as blue and pink paint on the wall, blue and pink fingernails and hair of the soldiers, blue and pink on the water-sprayed lawn. Horror and laughter, disaster and adventure, action film and musical – seemingly irreconcilable, but that’s exactly what fascinates Alex Garland, the award-winning and multi-nominated director.
Silence and noise in war are perhaps two interesting opponents. There is a terrible noise followed by an even more terrible silence as you walk around looking at dead bodies, mangled cars, the ruins of houses. And people do not have the sense to speak, because in the face of tragedy we are mute. That is what struck me first when I started watching the film – the relationship between silence and sound. In the silence, there is only the click of the camera film, because we need to document, because sometimes that is all we can do. But are we really?
The film is set in a dystopian United States in the future. Neither the exact future date nor the reasons for the war are given, and the action centers on a group of journalists who travel through the warring states trying to document the events of the war. Their latest goal is to reach the capital and interview the President, who is about to be imprisoned.
Things might have been very uninteresting and domestic, but things get complicated when Ly (Kirsten Dunst) and Joel (Wagner Moura) are joined by a young woman, Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), and an old journalist, Sam (Stephen McKinley Henderson). Jessie wants to become a great war photojournalist, while Semi, chubby and elderly, is looking for a car to help him get to his destination for journalistic reasons. Jessie is still very young and has not seen the atrocities of war, while Sammy, though a seasoned wolf, is too slow and clumsy.
The screenplay was written by Alex Garland himself, so this is not his first work as an author. He has also made a name for himself with films such as Ex Machina (2014) and 28 Days Later (2002), which also belong to the dystopian genre. Apparently, Garland is at his best when it comes to dealing with problems that have their roots in the present, but whose size and scope will come later.
His latest film, Civil War, focuses on journalism. Their aim is to document the war. What is important to know about war journalists is that they cannot intervene in what is happening in front of their eyes, or rather, they can, but then they would no longer be fulfilling their primary mission. The question is: what is more important, saving a man who has been set on fire or taking his photograph so that the whole world can learn about the horrors of war?
Thus, an attempt is made to penetrate the consciousness of the tragic protagonist. What kind of person is the one who must remain indifferent in the face of tragedy? One might say that his aims are noble, but his behavior is immoral by common standards. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted. And in general, the film tries to hang on to the question of indifference, as if the Americans were trying to react to what is happening in the world, to the extent of our indifference, when in our warm embrace we pretend that nothing is happening. We sell vintage dresses and serve customers while two soldiers with submachine guns stare at us from the rooftop. It’s a scene from a film.
The director’s answer to this problem is simple and brutal: we are a society of spectators. And journalists – yes, they are nobly trying to document reality, in fact they are creating historical material for future generations, but unfortunately a journalist, for other professional reasons, will always be looking for sensation. And, by way of contrast, Garland shows that there are not only independent journalists, but also biased journalists who take sides in order to get some benefit out of it.
The film asks the question: how much will we, as a viewing public, be able to remain indifferent? When our friends and relatives start dying, will we be able to take a picture of the moment of their death? To observe and film the death? In the end, will we not get tired or ill from our indifference? Will war as horror not supersede war as adventure? “I’ve never felt so scared and so alive”, says Jessie to her tired mentor Ly, while Joel’s eyes shine unhealthily as he prepares to go to the war zone. Adrenaline is the driving force that takes war reporters into the kill zone, but it is only a matter of time before they grow tired, their batteries run down, and the disfigured bodies of the dead take away the life in their eyes too.
The Americans have made a rather successful, albeit American, attempt to deal with the issue of war. Ironically, it is a civil war that is being shown, because Americans have neither seen nor smelled war in their own country – the only war they understand is civil war. In one scene, there was an attempt to reflect the Holocaust, in other words, all the horrors that war can lead to, but again, the impression of the film is somewhat diminished when you know that the filmmakers themselves can only imagine what they are talking about in reality.
There are many aesthetic moments in the film, such as the lights of a burning forest. Yes, it is the sparks of the fire that resemble the lights. The attempt has been made to show the many paradoxes of children playing and running around one moment, and the next moment a swarm of military helicopters is swarming the sky. Maybe it was an attempt to reflect the contradictions of war, when on the surface people are trying not to lose the joy of life, and just under the tectonic plates the tremors are crackling.
All in all, this is a truly watchable and relevant film, with artistic and conceptual elements that will resonate in the context of contemporary events.
