Irresponsibly detached.
For a film-maker of his intellect and position, and I say this as someone who has greatly enjoyed at least one or two of his other projects, it feels irresponsible and, frankly, privileged of writer-director Alex Garland to have made no actual statement with Civil War beyond both-sides-ing the terrifying endgame of America’s current political and cultural nosedive into real-life domestic factionism
Civil War simply traffics in the most superficial aesthetics with no definitive commentary or insight beyond the most obvious. While the performances are engaging, most notably from Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny as jaded veteran and inexperienced young photojournalists respectively, their character arcs are so bewilderingly predictable that they neither make up for nor explain the lack of weight or substance within the story itself. More notably, the anachronistic choice to make them photojournalists in an age where mobile phone video taken in war zones is fundamentally shifting the ways world politics and news media are understood by and dividing populations the world over encapsulates
the film’s stubborn commitment to vibes alone and, in turn, its egregious abdication of duty.
Whether or not he acknowledges it, in choosing to make this film, in this time and in this place, Alex Garland took a side. He isn’t documenting without judgement, because Civil War does not document anything even resembling what’s actually happening in the world. It’s not that Civil War says nothing, but that it what it says doesn’t at all advance the conversation – and the conversation is too urgent, and this film too timely, for it to contribute nothing of value and for that to be ok.
PS. Agreed:
PPS. Also agreed:
Further Vieiwng
“I wrote about Civil War, which opens with a Black man’s flesh melting off his body as he’s burned alive, which starts off a series of non-white deaths that only serve to further two white women characters. Typical,” writes David Dennis Jr. Read his full commentary here:
Writer/director Alex Garland on Come and See (1985), the film which inspired Civil War (via TIFF):
This featurette provides glimpses of some of the “immersive” film-making techniques (via A24)…
… while Frame Voyager elaborates further on the film’s “controversial” production:
The Editing Podcast speaks to Civil War‘s editor about the techniques used to ratchet up tension in the film:
Not helping the film against accusations of tone-deafness, was its marketing campaign, in which film studio A24 utilised AI-generated images (scroll through the carousel below)…
… which is part of our larger discussion about the use of AI in Film Marketing: