Civil War (dir: Alex Garland, 2024)

 

Rarely do you exit a cinema feeling shell-shocked. 

This is not an easy watch, but as a piece of quality film making - and I'm talking the camera work, the acting, the story-telling, everything - it's among the most accomplished, vivid, films I've ever seen.

We don't learn much about how the civil war came about except that the current president is (shockingly) in a third term and that an alliance of California and Texas ("Western Forces") are battling those of the federal government. But that isn't the point of the film; rather it's about the war correspondents - reporters and photographers - how and why they put themselves in harm's way to get the stories. 

The lead character, played by a magnificent Kirsten Dunst, is a hard-nosed photographer who came to the fore photographing "the Antifa Massacre" some 20 years before. With her are 2 reporters and a wannabe young photographer Jessie (Cailie Spaeny), who blags her way into the car for a journey across a war-torn, lawless (un)United States. 

As with any odyssey we observe, and in many cases experience, a series of incidents. At times we're in there with the photographers, feeling the fear and the gunfire, seeing the images they're grabbing. Think the first 5 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" when you feel like you're on Omaha beach, but over and over. After her first action Jessie comments "I've never felt so frightened ...or so alive". So we get some of the motivation, but, later, we also see the impact that this has on the veterans.

This is also a film about what happens when men with guns find that the normal restraints of civil life, not to mention actual law and order, fade away. Very scary. 

After the film, I went to do some shopping in a city-centre supermarket and, hearing a siren in the street outside, suddenly felt I was in a war zone.