Prescient?

 “Civil War”a film by Alex Garland, 2024

This film gave the impression it would be a sensationalist, cheesy, apolitical version of the real thing. It actually has, in its own way, a broader message. The most obvious apolitical point is that the 'Western Forces” of California and Texas that confront the government in D.C. is a quite unlikely combination in reality, nor would a real civil war necessarily be a 'war between the states' or four regions. We can't even tell why this war started or what it is about.  In the film the U.S. is run by a somewhat familiar, bombastic and authoritarian President of the United States who is on his third term, so there's that.

The central figures are war photographers and war reporters. As the famous and experienced journalist played by Kristen Dunst says, “I always thought my pictures would warn people of the terrible consequences of war.” But evidently not, as the U.S. is now embroiled in one on its own soil. The film starts with pushing and clubbing between cops and demonstrators in Brooklyn, New York, reminding us of present images of anti-war Gaza protests or BLM confrontations. But then someone straps on a suicide back-pack. At this riot Dunst helps a somewhat stupid young woman who wants to be a war photographer too. The kid becomes a central part of the story and at the end we see her as the vile careerist and adrenaline junkie she always was.

This group of journalists decide to visit the front lines in Charlottesville, Virginia, which is not an accident as far as locations go. It was the site of a deadly fascist and Neo-Confederate protest in 2017. Dunst and her obnoxious press reporter companion, who has stupidly brought the girl with them to 'learn the ropes,' plan to go on to Washington D.C. to interview the President. The President has not talked to the press in many months. In the long, circular journey in their white press van they come across military roadblocks, freeways full of blown up and abandoned cars, locals guarding gas stations who take Canadian money (dollars are evidently worthless); tortured people and executed prisoners, ruined military gear next to a Pennys and a refugee encampment in an old stadium run by a humanitarian group. They get intimately involved in a fire-fight and a sniper confrontation, and have only kevlar, helmets, press passes and cameras.

They visit a pretty, small town where the war seems not to be happening and go into a clothing store. The clerk tells them the town has decided to stay neutral. This is similar to the parents of both Dunst and the young woman, who live in Colorado and Missouri respectively. They are also pretending the war is not happening, as 'apolitical' people do, thinking their lives are not affected when they are. Yet the group spies local snipers on the roof of a nearby building.

The most significant event is coming upon a large dugout full of bodies. This latter is the most powerful scene in the film. Three Government soldiers are dumping dead civilians into a pit. They have grabbed the young woman and another correspondent after she made the truly stupid decision to get into a moving car from another moving car. The journalists are clearly looking at a war crime, with more about to happen.

The lead soldier, wearing red sunglasses, asks all of them 'where are you from?' When they don't give the right patriotic answer (not 'Hong Kong') they get a bullet in the head. He kills those who are not 'real Americans' including another Asian. The reporter stupidly mentions they are journalists from Reuters, which is an international press syndicate. It can only 'go South' from there. This deadly nationalism might remind you of the ideology of certain fascist and ultra-right groups in the U.S. I won't say what happens next.

Finally they reach a military encampment of the Western Forces near Charlottesville and find out from embedded journalists that the Government front lines have collapsed and the way to D.C. is open. Now while I've never been a war photographer, this film repeatedly shows them clicking pictures among squads of soldiers in full combat, as if Frank Capra's shot in the Spanish Civil War was being recreated endlessly. Most soldiers would tell these people to get the fuck out of the way – as they truly are in the way. They are like a trip wire. It's perhaps a riff on the selfie culture of modern cell phones and media, where everyone wants to be famous for 15 minutes and also an unlikely plot device. War journalists hang back as much as they can... though, like Gaza, Ukraine or Mexico, they are easily shot.  Nor are they quite the grisly voyeurs this film makes out.  In this apocalyptic situation, cell phones and much tech is not functioning, along with constant power blackouts, so the only fame will be a news photo made by an old-fashioned Leica. A photo that makes a career, just as Dunst made her career at some 'Antifa' massacre long ago.

The climactic scene takes place around the White House in D.C., which is surrounded by high concrete walls. The Front has orders to execute the President. Dunst, who by this time is shell-shocked after seeing the death of one of her elderly journalist friends, is not even taking pictures, while the young woman is frantically snapping away, taking constant risks. Dunst then realizes there is a diversion and starts into the White House, followed by a squad of WF soldiers. What follows is the what might be called 'the young taking over from the old' in the worst way possible. To careerists the old and experienced are expendable evidently.

The film is littered with hints as to actual U.S. politics, but it mostly serves as a warning about the reality of civil warfare.  Certainly the director has no idea what is actually going on.  We are heading into an election where physical threats are common and actual violence is very likely. It is a situation where police are storming onto campuses and where the Christian nationalist Speaker of the House has called for the National Guard to be sent too. Heavily armed right-wing militias and lone nuts populate the country. Gun-crazy Republicans flaunt their weapons while the U.S. wages several wars overseas. Civil war is the wet-dream of the neo-Confederate reactionaries. Retrograde state legislatures, a corrupt Supreme Court, a heavily anti-democratic electoral system, an archaic Constitution, a barely functioning Congress – what part of this is optimistic? The film, like Dunst's war photos, serves as a warning.

Be Prepared!  

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 17 year archive, using these terms: “The Civil War in the United States” (Marx-Engels); “American War,” “A Confederacy of Dunces,” “The Neo-Confederate States,” The Untertow” (Sharlet); “Southern Cultural Nationalism and Southern Liberals,” “Hunger Games,” or the phrase “Civil War” or words “Trump” or 'fascism.'

Kultur Kommissar

April 28, 2024