The rocket launch of Civil War in US cinemas it is proof that Alex Garland’s fifth directorial is not, as some claim, a pure exercise in style. Instead, dig into panic room of American fears, turns common sensibilities upside down, provokes and disturbs, is an open scar on current events, a lesson on degenerate power, on hatred, chaos, collective selfishness, senseless wars controlled like a video game. A discussion on the power of good information on the eve of the elections. Dystopian plot. A militia with a flag that has only 2 stars is unleashed against the White House, the President, the most powerful man in the world, the sentinel of civilization.
First point, the show. Civil War it is one of the films of the year, at the box office and in acclaim. And not just figuratively. Alex Garland, 54, sets a tableApocalypse Now 4.0, and approaches, albeit with a different setting, the nightmares of a robust film like The haine by Mathieu Kassovitz (1995). An anti-racist apologist, post Trump and post Biden, where the news is historicized, where individual malaise becomes collective fury and relies on the technological devil. Savagery without explanation. Evil for evil, abyss after abyss. Among helicopters flying like hornets, slums of survivors, snipers on the roofs and loose dogs in the bush. With the innocent in the crosshairs and the apocalypse in the ranches and garages.
As shown by polls, the second civil war (second after that between Southerners and Northerners of 1861-1865) was one of the bugaboos of the new America, where shootings take place in the Capitol, discrimination is part of common life and the police are accused of abuse and violence.
Disturbing, hyperbolic, not so unreal scenario. An evil president-turned-dictator is besieged in Washington by an army of rebels. California and Texas, along with other smaller states, lead the secession of the Western Forces. The colors of the clash are blue and red. The battle brought ruin and destruction. The country is close to collapse, hungry and without resources. The most important cities are on the ropes and communication routes are cut off. Small communities of stragglers form in the countryside among mass graves and improvised gallows, while denunciations, ambushes, fires and explosions rage. In hell, an assault photojournalist moves, the affectless Lee (Kirsten Dunst), famous as a star but tired of war, who has horror images in her eyes and is losing contact with herself. For this, she organizes an expedition from New York to Washington, together with a group of colleagues. He wants to interview the president under attack but above all to understand the meaning of that fratricidal massacre. With her, an elderly editor-in-chief of the New York Times (Stephen McKinley Henderson) who brings the wisdom and principles of good journalism, “facts separated from opinions”; the horny but fragile Joel (Wagner Moura) who believes in the scoop; the young Jessie (Cailee Spaeny, just seen in the soporific Priscilla by Sofia Coppola), a highly talented apprentice photojournalist in which Lee sees himself again. The path is one Way of the cross of corpses, beatings, oppression and brutal executions. Everyone risks their lives, and someone actually falls on the field. The worst moments occur at a gas station where two supposed enemies are tortured in the car wash and on a farm where a crazed cell of patriots led by Jesse Plemons (very convincing) shoot anyone without American blood on sight. The final assault on the Oval Room has a strong metaphorical value, even if – we hope – not prophetic. Dunst is a radar of emotions, Spaeny the hopeless alter egoMoura the correspondent who sees the war as a terrible circus.
CIVIL WAR by Alex Garland
(USA, 2024, duration 109′, A24)
with Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman
Rating: **** out of 5
In the rooms
Tags: Garlands American Civil War wicked letters Olivia Colman Jessie Buckley films cinema streaming
