GARLAND FIRES WARNING SHOT
Director's latest takes aim at the descent into madness that seems to be happening around us
One of America's darkest chapters in history has never been far from Hollywood's imagination. From Gone with the Wind to Glory to Lincoln, moviemakers have wrestled with the barbarity and contentious politics that gripped the country during its Civil War.
That conversation continues with Alex Garland's Civil War, now playing in theatres. The film hit cinemas on the anniversary, to the day, of the date the Civil War began back in 1861. And it's coming out just months ahead of a contentious presidential election this November that threatens to divide the U.S. even further.
The film, which Garland writes and directs, captures America in the midst of all-out warfare as it follows a band of journalists (Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura, Stephen Mckinley Henderson) making their way to Washington, D.C., to document the fighting as rebel forces try to seize the White House and overthrow a Fascist president (Nick Offerman).
Garland doesn't explain what led to the conflict and his messaging is apolitical, but in the lead-up to its release some viewers called the storyline “irresponsible” and accused the filmmaker of “fearmongering.” Others have questioned the appropriateness of releasing the film into an already divided political climate during an election year. But both Garland and his stars call Civil War an antiwar film that is a cautionary tale meant to start a dialogue and not “lecture” its audience.
The filmmaker, who also wrote and directed Ex Machina and Annihilation, says he made a group of reporters his central characters because he was “pissed off at the way journalists were constantly getting demonized.
“It strikes me as stupid, but also unwise because journalists protect us,” he says. “There are a lot of good people doing good work and, broadly, when people attack journalists what they are doing often is protecting corrupt politicians.”
“I had never read anything like this before. It was so inspiring,” says Dunst, 41, who plays a war photographer. “I know that's a strange word to use for this movie. I just feel like this movie has so much humanity in it ... It's not glamorizing war. It's a very antiwar movie, for me. I think the fact that we don't explain a lot in the film and we're not choosing sides or putting any certain political view onto this film is so important. It will allow people to have conversations afterward.”
Narcos star Moura, who Garland cast as a war correspondent, echoes Dunst's sentiment.
“The film does not have a political agenda,” Moura, 47, says. “It doesn't pick sides. It's not ideologically driven, and that's great because it's a movie about the aftermath of a polarized situation, which we all know. Everybody's living this. Not just here in the U.S. It's everywhere.”
Spaeny, who plays an aspiring photographer, hopes that the pre-release debate around the film encourages people to go out and see it so they can understand “the consequences of polarization.”
“Alex is such a good writer and he injects so much humanity into his films,” the 25-year-old breakout star of Priscilla says. “His films can be a bit spiky and scary, but he works in these worlds that push the envelope and at the core of it, it's all about human relationships.”
The idea for the story came to Garland in the midst of the Donald Trump presidency, he says, but it wasn't inspired directly by the former U.S. leader.
“I shared the same worry that a lot of people shared, which was something really strange is happening. The press is not trusted, politicians are acting like psychopaths, social media is fuelling it, and something dark and strange is going on,” Garland says. “I think some of it is a product of my age. I'm 53. I was brought up with cautionary tales about fascism in Germany and how it came out of poverty and democracy. So I see states descending into madness as something that's perfectly possible — all over the world, it happens. The question is: Can this occur at home? Can this happen in my country or America?”
After the Jan. 6 riots that attempted to decertify the 2020 presidential election, Garland says he was convinced even more that the story needed to be told. “In a way, a kind of strange version of the events in the film were unfolding for real,” he says. “That didn't make me want to put down the pen, it added more anger to it. On some level, when I saw that stuff I was disgusted by it. I was dismayed that this had actually occurred.”
Garland and the film's stars say the film isn't nihilistic, or without hope. The story should be seen as a warning. A possible vision for a future if we continue to engage in an “us versus us” war of words.
“I try to make things that leave space for conversation,” Garland says. “Sometimes a film ends and you are forgetting it almost by the time you leave the cinema. It's pure escapism and sometimes that's exactly what I want. Then there's a film like Anatomy of a Fall ... I kept thinking about that film for a long time afterward. I try to make films like that. That's my ambition. Films that will stay in people's minds and be something they can talk about afterward.”