★★★★★
An immersive action epic about the hunger for that one perfect shot, what it takes to get it, and what you might lose along the way, Alex Garland’s masterpiece is an empathetic love letter to combat photographers.
When the poster and trailer for Civil War first dropped, people were worried. What was Alex Garland up to? Is this British writer-director aiming for a grand statement on the American political scene? As it turns out – no, that’s not what this movie is.
Civil War is an immersive action masterpiece and a love letter to combat photographers fighting to bring the truth to the public in the middle of the fog of war and the chaos of battle. Epic yet intimate, Garland’s film is less a commentary on America than on comment on the lives and value of war journalists, and the impact their jobs have on them.
The main plot follows four combat photographers as they race by car towards Washington DC, on a mission to photograph the President before his administration falls to rebel forces. Kirsten Dunst plays Lee, the veteran clearly modelled on real life photographer Lee Miller, with Wagner Moura as her colleague, Stephen McKinley Henderson as an older journalist who needs a ride, and Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla in Priscilla) as the wannabe hotshot who worships Lee and talks her way into passage.
This could have been set in another country, or even a fictional one, without the core of the film changing too much. But Civil War is set in a near-future US, and the benefit is that this is film that will have greater reach and impact for US audiences. Sometimes, perhaps, you need to say “this is not just an issue for other people.”
Nevertheless, Garland clearly wants to divorce his narrative from contemporary political specifics – so the reasons for the civil war are deliberately vague, the alliances run counter to what you might expect, and you don’t ever hear the words Republican or Democrat.
The aim here is clearly to get audiences thinking more openly about the nature of war and truth, rather than automatically trying to interpret everything through a reductive red state vs blue state lens. It absolutely works.
Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow have crafted an excellent score, and the sonic landscape is immersive and visceral – bombastic at points, dropping out to silence at others. Barrow has also worked with Garland to select some remarkable needle-drops, so that while some deaths are treated solemnly, another might be provocatively juxtaposed with De La Soul’s 1989 banger Say No Go. Garland toys with the audience in this way, as he introduces themes of desensitisation. Are you having a good time, as the track kicks in? Is this a kickass moment? There is space here for the audience to bring their own responses, their own half of the conversation. For those who prefer their politics clear and their art didactic, that may prove frustrating.
The cinematography is also through-the-roof good – at times chaotically reminiscent of Children of Men, it sucks the audience right into the action. At other points there’s a stillness that allows to audience to scan the edges of the screen, finding key details in the environment. In the premiere screening a deserted highway overpass got a big laugh due to the “Go Steelers!” graffiti scrawled on it. But then the laughter quickly died away when people noticed two bodies, slightly out of focus, hanged from the structure. After the screening Garland insisted “it’s ok to laugh. Because this kind of situation, it’s stupid. It’s ridiculous.”
Early in the film a Black man is shown on fire, in highly aestheticised slow motion. Rivette would have been aghast. But in a movie about war photography, the aesthetics take on a new meaning. Garland is asking: is this cool? Is this stylish and bold? Is this One Perfect Shot? What are you as an audience, looking for in these images?
In a film about the war photography, this provocation does not feel accidental.
In the end, this movie is about the hunger for that one perfect shot, what it takes to get it, and what you might lose along the way.
Civil War is the film of the year so far. Five stars.
Whitlock&Pope 