Civil War, the movie

[Hendryk]

Ahead of its release, the movie by Alex Garland about a second US civil war has been widely panned in alternate history circles for the implausibility of its premise--indeed, it is virtually impossible to think of a realistic scenario in which Texas and California take the joint leadership of an armed rebellion against the federal government.

Yet this review by Vox's Zack Beauchamp claims that the very decision to leave out the details of how the country got there was the right one, as it allows the story to focus on what's really important in a civil war, namely the breakdown of trust and order.

“Civil War” has little to say about America — but a lot to say about war​

Thankfully, Civil War is not the film I was led to believe. The movie begins near the end of the conflict, providing little context about how things got so bad in fictional America. There are stray hints — the president (Nick Offerman) is in his third term and has disbanded the FBI — but nothing that could help the viewer understand why the United States collapsed into bloodshed. Contrary to marketing, and perhaps even the director’s intent, Civil War has virtually nothing to say about real-world American politics.

But this doesn’t mean the film is a failure — far from it. Once you understand that Civil War isn’t about what you think, you can appreciate it for what it actually is: a searing meditation on what happens when political orders collapse and violence takes on a sinister logic of its own.

In doing so, it channels some of the best modern academic research on violence in civil wars.

Such a film has little to say about contemporary American politics. But the imagery and places may help American audiences connect more easily to the subtler story it’s actually telling: about how people in real-life civil wars make life into hell for the people caught up in them.

It is less a film about political polarization, or even the headline-dominating wars in Gaza and Ukraine, than one about the long and bloody counterinsurgency wars that defined the war on terror era.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Yeah, you'd have to do a lot of work to get California and Texas allied  and a separate Florida-ruled group, I don't see it as impossible but it would take a lot. Us AH wonks can do that, the film sticks to using that to show an unsettling world of collapsed order and random violence without being able to say "ah but their cause is--" when someone executes someone else who was trying to surrender.

 

[The Red]

Yeah, you'd have to do a lot of work to get California and Texas allied  and a separate Florida-ruled group, I don't see it as impossible but it would take a lot. Us AH wonks can do that, the film sticks to using that to show an unsettling world of collapsed order and random violence without being able to say "ah but their cause is--" when someone executes someone else who was trying to surrender.

It's tricky because this argument seems to resemble the sort of Oh Dearism which can hinder understanding for the sake of making some grand point about the human condition. Certainly much of the violence in any war is going to be meaningless, opportunistic or random but to actively try and cast everything as random (particularly in a civil war where things are more likely to be political) is concerning. Particularly when the main character is meant to be a journalist.

Granted I haven't seen it and have heard it's better than it looks but what looks worst about the worldbuilding is the big clean factions which conveniently cut across existing state lines. Civil wars are messy, they don't look line something John King would be pointing at. There's a reason there's a West Virginia in the modern day.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Granted I haven't seen it and have heard it's better than it looks but what looks worst about the worldbuilding is the big clean factions which conveniently cut across existing state lines. Civil wars are messy, they don't look line something John King would be pointing at. There's a reason there's a West Virginia in the modern day.

There's a briefly seen map implying clean lines but multiple scenes show a messier thing - one scene has guys in uniform fighting an organised group in ragtag outfits, there's places with their own guards, never clear who the "what kind of Anericans" guy from the trailer is serving with.

 

[monroe]

I'm waiting for a friend to get back to me on if the film is worth watching (this is not a solicitation for people to comment telling me either way, my trusted friend is my barometer) but from what I gathered the film is an indictment of combat reporters in a lot of modern combat zones who only want the interview and steadfastly don't engage with the politics of the conflict, and part of the reason the politics borders on nonsensical is a choice that reflects journalistic choices to not engage with the context in search of a story - which means missing the story altogether

 

[Charles EP M.]

from what I gathered the film is an indictment of combat reporters in a lot of modern combat zones who only want the interview and steadfastly don't engage with the politics of the conflict

For once you've heard back/seen ut, I'd say

Spoiler

it's not IMO - for one thing Joel does ask at one point and the soldiers tell him he's an idiot for thinking they're not just trying to kill a guy who wants to kill them - but I can see why people would have that reading because it's very clear that doing the job has left a lot of them fundamentally broken, or they were broken to start with (Sammy cannot stop doing the job even though even he knows it's a bad idea to keep going), and on the one hand there's Lee talking a good game about being dispassionate while steadily cracking and then there's the ones who forget they're dealing with real dead people. You see this is in the guy talking about "THE MONEY SHOT" he took while there's gunfire and shelling right in front of them, Joel's almost feral glee at being this close to a firefight where people are being killed, the fact Joel's in one of Jessie's photos watching everything like he's being judged.

 

[Japhy]

the movie by Alex Garland about a second US civil war has been widely panned in alternate history circles for the implausibility of its

No higher praise for a film then it not passing the circlejerk standard.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Really surprised there's no mockbuster. You could've called it Civil Conflict, The Second Civil War, British Civil War, Uncivil Warfare, Civil War: Battle of New York (not filmed on New York or a place that resembles it)....

 

[I Saw A Red Sky]

Saw a trailer for this and it looks ass but it is really something to see an apolitical contemporary civil war movie.

 

[The Red]

For once you've heard back/seen ut, I'd say

Having seen it now, much better than I expected,

Spoiler

I can see why people would come to the conclusion monroe gathered. There is a lot that could point to the message being that journalists are souless monsters preying on human misery, dispassionately clicking away whilst someone is necklaced, laughing with militia while they massacre prisoners, staging pictures with torturers and their victims whilst refusing to do anything to intervene for good, even when directly offered. Jessie clearly develops a taste for devouring human souls as the film progresses and by the end is well on her way to becoming the next Lee after consuming her idol.

That said my own interpretation was more about detachment; journalistic or otherwise. Much has been written about how the lens of a camera acts as a form of escape for the one weilding. Lee and Jessie both have parents who are trying to ignore what's going on. Lee was a combat journalist before the civil war broke out but she continues to do it despite her stated mission of sending an anti-war message home has long failed. Lee and Joel seem more in awe of the 'sitting out' community than perplexed, with Sammy appearing to indicate Lee might have wanted to stay there if he hadn't pointed out theirs is an armed neutrality. My impression was for the veteran journos their continued work was their own way of detaching themselves, something which began to fail for Lee when confronted with D.C. itself become a warzone broke the spell of trying to ignore this is happening in the US.


Despite the OP article I didn't really see any warning about the breakdown of trust and order. No-one mourns the US, certainly not its last President. The closest thing to patriotism you see is from a racist war criminal. You could make actually make an argument for it being anti-American but only in the sense Borat 2 was. It's not even really an anti-war film (no boogaloos are going to hanging up their Hawaiian shirts after watching.)

War isn't hell, it's melancholic.

All in all, feeling really optimistic about A24 being the new horror studio dedicated to making good films now that Blumhouse has gone down the route of self-parody. I like both good and bad horror films but it's refreshing to have the option.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Spoiler

Lee and Joel seem more in awe of the 'sitting out' community than perplexed, with Sammy appearing to indicate Lee might have wanted to stay there if he hadn't pointed out theirs is an armed neutrality.

Spoiler

It is an interesting beat, isn't it? Our grizzled recorder of truth would  also like to sit out and pretend. The clothes she tries on aren't just feminine but feminine clothes that cannot be used in her job.

And it's not a vision of peace and calm a lot of the audience will root for, it's the stereotyped white picket fence suburb that we culturally associate with blandness and phonies. It's not the noise and community of the UN camp that she's tempted by. She wants Stepford. "It's like how I remember it," says an elderly black man about the threat of Now Leave Town, and that feels very intentional

 

[Time Enough]

That said my own interpretation was more about detachment; journalistic or otherwise.

As I watched it this evening, I feel like that’s why Alex Garland is probably the best for this kind of thing, given that his style filmmaking is rather detached. Indeed I enjoyed that it allowed the action not to feel showy or ‘yeah boy’, and just make you go “oh, fuck”

 

[Charles EP M.]

As I watched it this evening, I feel like that’s why Alex Garland is probably the best for this kind of thing, given that his style filmmaking is rather detached. Indeed I enjoyed that it allowed the action not to feel showy or ‘yeah boy’, and just make you go “oh, fuck”

It came out that he did a bunch of the directing on Dredd and you can see that style start there

 

[Time Enough]

It came out that he did a bunch of the directing on Dredd and you can see that style start there

From the clips I've seen, the Slow Mo scenes feel very Garlandy, so I can see it. I did enjoyed the saturated colours of Civil War, makes it feel very different from other films about the conflict.

 

[IanBertram]

I've not seen the film, but from what I've read, it never occurred to me to think of it as AH. It seemed more a commentary on the extreme polarisation of US politics.

The author of Prophet Song, by Paul Lynch, about the descent of modern Ireland into civil war and repression, has apparently said it's not a dystopia, because everything he writes about is already happening somewhere. The film could be taken the same way as a universal story, that is set in a modern USA for impact, but not necessarily being about the USA. Everything shown is happening now in Gaza, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and a myriad of unreported places.

On similar themes are American War by Omar El Akkad, and perhaps Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris.