Civil War

So when I saw the trailer for Civil War I knew that this movie was going to be weird at best, terrible if we’re being realistic. The casting was strong but as we know that is nowhere near enough to make a good movie. But I love A24 and I have faith so here we are.

We apparently live in some kind of fictional/fantasy world where California joined forces with Texas. I literally can not fathom a situation that would make that alliance happen. The movie offers no explanation in the first act. The film's structure follows this group of journalists' journey to the white house.

So it seems like the film is attempting to be a commentary on the vilification of journalists and news in general. I love this angle, but as always it is about execution. They do need to tell us at some point what caused this civil war. But if we are focusing on the journalists I doubt we will be spending much time discussing policy changes that led to civil unrest.

War journalists have to be some of the most incredibly strong people on the planet. Their whole job is to see and document horrific things that happen and do nothing about it. Their involvement could and would either make things worse, or get them killed. It's their job to show us what is going on in the world so that WE can change it. And their suicide rates are amoung the highest of any profession.

I think using a younger, hopeful photographer against Kristen Dunst’s experienced, hardened photographer was a really good way to show the importance of this job and the dangers and emotional toll of it.

A lot of the film relies on snapshots; decent stretches of the film have no dialogue. Now I love that and I think it's one of the most beautiful parts of film and the ability to tell a story through images. But especially when your story takes place in the middle of a war and there is devastation everywhere. There are really no words for that. There is no exchange that could happen in dialogue that properly conveys that kind of trauma and destruction. Only seeing and feeling it can get the message across.

Then they stumble into this town that doesn’t acknowledge that the war is happening. Ba Sing Se over here is going on, business as usual. Now this is important because as we have seen, you can not ignore war. It will affect you either way and all ignoring it does is make you a mindless robot, unfeeling, incapable of thought or empathy.

I love that they showed the actual effects of being a war correspondent. Lee starts absolutely crumbling in that last firefight, like cumulative PTSD was burying her and Jesse who as far as war photography goes has not been through a lot, is really up in the action. She is gonna get herself shot, she is not paying attention to what's going on around her, she is very much in the way. Nope, it's worse she got Lee shot because she is so damn stupid. Yet another argument for 23 year old children to not be allowed around adults.

So the movie really was just about journalists…but not in any way that actually mattered. I kept wanting there to be more. More commentary about how journalists influence war, society, culture. Maybe some actual commentary on how oppressive governments hate the news media and attempt to suppress free press. Perhaps even some commentary on how civil wars start. But there was absolutely none of that. What could have been a really great satire was shallow at best. I am really tired of filmmakers attaching the term satire to their very mediocre, shallow commentaries.