Civil War

Civil War

Writer & Director ~ Alex Garland

2023, USA-UK

Stars ~ Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny

 

 

In a near-future USA, journalists in a civil war want to have words with the president.

 

Initially, not superficially choosing a side seems commendable. Garland even unites states that make American commentators say “Really? How? Why?” (Texas and California); but this is surely just in the service of muddying the waters. For example, an “ANTIFA massacre” is mentioned, but is it of or by? Although superficially meticulously vague, intent is obvious from the start when the presidential character stumbles around a speech along the lines of “Some says it’s the best triumph of humankind”; and the finale underscores this. A civil war has been brought about by such a character and the people are left in a warzone, swaggering guns and cameras without knowing really who they’re shooting.

 

Who exactly is the end target? The warmongers compromising journalists’ humanity? Audiences not paying attention to horrific reportage as a warning? If there’s the message that we don’t heed journalism as a warning, the film seems a little old-fashioned as the real-world scrutiny has surely now widened to the responsibility journalism has for entertaining “Alternative Facts” and platforming those that promote scams, conspiracies, division, and hatred. Social Media is suspicious by its absence of omnipresence. These are the very things that have put this presidential figure where he is and brought about this civil war, surely?  

 

 

In the end, this conjuring trick of negligible fence-sitting means we are left with the human drama: it’s about the characters and their experience of war. This mostly consists of driving through war-torn suburbs in the kind of tableaus familiar to post-apocalypse genre. We know straight away that Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) is there to take on Lee’s (Kirsten Dunst) mantle. As soon as Lee saves Cailee during the opening action, you can tell Lee is going to be one of those stubborn, headstrong, careless, and slightly clueless youngsters that is going to get others killed. And when other side characters suddenly turn up, they may as well wave placards saying “Expendables”, especially as we know from the trailer that we have the scene-stealing Jesse Plemons moment coming up. As haunted and convincing as Dunst is, as much as Wagner Moura emotes as he falls to his knees and cries/screams in grief as soldiers pass by, there isn’t much new or insightful here with Spaeny especially coming across as mere device.

 

What we do get is a run of impressive set-pieces and sound-design, and direction that is equally mainstream generic as it is engrossing. It’s bigger and grander but somehow less distinctive than Garland’s previous films. In their interview with Simon Mayo,Garland and Kunst nod that the film is a warning about the rise of fascism, and Mayo subsequently commented on the show that it wouldn’t work so well at any other time. It certainly feels of-the-moment and away from that, in the future, what will remain is a film that is less than the sum of its parts. But if we’re meant to reflect on our responsibility to images of war, this still ends on a mainstream Blow It Up! finale which is exciting, fully explosive, and immersive and makes the journey worthwhile, but nevertheless undermines any previous thematic pensiveness.  

10 favourite novels

 I read Betsy Byars' "The Eighteenth Emergency" at junior school and is my first favourite novel that I still love. Byars' books often present the melancholy of childhood with irreverent humour. This was my very first experience of writing truly speaking to me.

First read Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" at school. Its tale of domestic horror, of what people in a household do each other ladled with a dash of Gothic has an unforgettable cruelty and atmosphere. Everyone goes on about Heathcliff and Cathy, but that's only half the story as it is also about their poisonous legacy. Romantic? Pfft.

It seems that George Orvwell's "1984" will always be prescient. 

Marlon James' "A Brief History of Seven Killings" is a brand new favourite. Its multi-prespectives and prose are often breath-taking.

It was only on a second read that I realised the humour in "The Remains of the Day", and how truly sad it is in conclusion, speaking of a life lost to repression. Maybe that's to do with getting older?

When I was studying Holocaust fiction at university, I read a lot of devastating text, but it was Robert Frister's memoir "The Cap, or a price of a life" that made my blood run cold and my draw drop in equal measure. 

The density, plotting, era recreation and obsessive undertow of James Ellroy's work is stunning, and although his later work can verge on the impregnable, it was "L.A. Confidential" that made me a fan.

I read Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" in my early teens. I already knew science-fiction was the brainiest (that it wasn't just pulp) but Dick's work told me that no matter how dazzling the future would be, downbeat societies and human existential angst would be a constant.

Every chapter in Gunter Grass' "The Tin Drum" felt like a novel in itself. (And the film barely covered much of it.)

John Ajvide Lindqvist's "Let the Right One In" is just a definitive horror bildungsroman. (And the film couldn't cover all of it.)

Monkey Man

Monkey Man

Director ~ Dev Patel

Writers ~ Dev Patel, Paul Angunawela, John Collee

2024, United States-Canada-Singapore-India

Stars ~ Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, Pitobash

 

‘Slumdog Wick’, where the earnestness of themes such as political and religious corruption blend with action movie excess-bonkersness. Quite deftly too, so it never feels as unintentionally humorous as many action thrillers do when trying to be serious. Although it does rely on Comedy Small Guy and a supercharged tuktuk for yucks. The plotting and planning of the first half are perhaps more captivating than the more fist-first approach of the second half, but it never slacks as it hurtles through its intent and genre tropes.

This is a genre that tends towards providing retaliation fantasies for the underdog, and ‘Monkey Man’ is absolutely on the side of the dispossessed and downtrodden. Patel’s “Kid”, although aligned with the legend of Hanuman, seems only to find identity in his vengeance, almost a cypher but more a street-kid robbed of his character. For intent: social commentary propping up the crunch of action – and also addresses head-on and shrugs off the ‘John Wick’ stuff. And the film is upfront in its disgust and targeting issues of political corruption, “untouchables” and caste divisions. It even has room for trans issues with its portrayal of hijras, India’s transgender and intersex community, and referencing the god Ardhanarishvara. This community is both a safe space and, ultimately, closet kick-ass warriors, perhaps indicative of how the film’s thoughtfulness gives way to outrageous action.  The film is almost soulful on the side, in that these themes seem deeply felt and not just garnish for motivation.

It’s Dev Patel’s baby (writing, acting, starring) and he makes a sympathetic and appealing Vengeance With No Name with a hurt vulnerability rather than Reeves’ suited-slacker cool or Cruise’s All American Smile sheen. Even beefed up, there’s a puppy-dog vulnerability to Patel that gives him far more appeal than written to his part. It’s swift, colourful, looks so zeitgeisty and accomplished that it is somewhat baffling that Jordan Peele apparently had to step in to ensure a cinema release. Perhaps it doesn’t pack the emotional wallop it aims for, buried under a barrage of over-the-top genre punches, and it is nothing new, but it has plenty of vibe.

Fights? The bathroom brawl and the elevator scrap for me.