Director Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’ tries to dodge politics amid turmoil
Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’ attempts to navigate a contemporary American civil conflict devoid of explicit political commentary, leaving audiences questioning the consequences of such deliberate ambiguity amid societal turmoil and historical echoes
DIRECTOR Alex Garland aims to demonstrate that a film about a contemporary American civil conflict can be crafted without delving into political discourse. Furthermore, he’s set on achieving this feat amid the backdrop of an election year.
THE QUESTION IS: WHY?
His new film “Civil War,” which opened in cinemas on Friday, follows an unlikely group of journalists as they make their way from New York to Washington, D.C., as the rebel “Western Forces,” made up of California and Texas, close in on the capital. Two of those journalists – Lee (Kirsten Dunst), a legendary conflict photographer, and Joel (Wagner Moura), a writer – hope to secure the final interview and image of the sitting president of the United States (Nick Offerman) when they arrive, before the commander in chief is dragged from office and killed.
Battle lines force the group to take a circuitous route, along which they encounter the terrible, often random violence that has taken hold of the country amid the internecine conflict.
It is a powerful film, which Garland has said he made to underscore the importance of journalism: to remind us that much of what we know about the world is a direct result of journalists telling and showing us what is going on at any given moment. Even if their lives and/or mental health are at stake.
This is an admirable and important goal, particularly in our own historical moment.
But “the Western Forces”? What now?
As many noted from the moment the “Civil War” trailer dropped, it’s tough to get invested in the problems of four little people when you’re busy trying to imagine what set of circumstances – beyond, say, an alien invasion – would forge an alliance between California and Texas, and precipitate a second breakaway faction identified as “the Florida Alliance.”
Especially one that puts these states at odds with the president and, presumably, whatever remains of the U.S. Army.
I guess the people fighting on the president’s side are what remains of the army; it’s not exactly clear.
Much is not clear in “Civil War.” This is intentional. Garland is not interested in exploring the reason the Western Forces came together to attack the White House beyond alluding to the social currents that might make a modern civil war possible: racism, nationalism, isolationism and apathy.
But social currents don’t start a war; organized and opposing armed forces do. We never learn the cause of the conflict, the ideology of the president or any of his policies beyond his reliance on the mechanisms of authoritarianism: He’s killed reporters, bombed American citizens, disbanded the FBI and, given that he’s serving his third term, probably suspended the Constitution.
Nor do we discover what the Western Forces and the Florida Alliance hope to achieve by overthrowing him – we assume they are fighting for democracy, but that could just be wishful thinking.
Instead, the film focuses on the resolute nature of the four main characters — formidable Lee; her young, eager and initially unwanted acolyte, Jessie (Cailee Spaeny); thrill-addicted Joel; and Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), the aging correspondent who’s seen it all.
They are a compelling band, expertly played and welded together by the belief that their job is not to judge what they encounter but to record it for the enlightenment of others.
Their “objectivity” is so thorough that they apparently have no interest in context or meaning, namely the obviously cataclysmic series of events that led to this moment. There’s little discussion of what Joel wants to ask the president upon finding him or what purpose such an interview would serve beyond being his last. (To be fair, things have devolved to the point where no news outlet appears to be worried about scoops or page views; Lee and Joel are merely hoping to document history.)
Despite spending hours in the car viewing one apocalyptic scene after another, none of our heroes are moved to consider moments when all this might have been avoided or to contemplate the nation’s future: Do the Western Forces have a plan beyond the president’s removal? Is there an acceptable vice president or speaker of the House waiting in the wings? Does Congress even exist? Who is leading the Western Forces anyway?