A Fresh Female Narrative Ignites "Civil War."
Spoiler alert: If you plan to see Alex Garland’s new movie “Civil War” then don’t read this until you have.
Spoiler alert: If you plan to see Alex Garland’s new movie “Civil War,” then don’t read this until you have.
When war photographer Lee Smith closes her eyes during what should be a relaxing bath moment at the end of a busy working day, she sees visions.
American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, shell-shocked and staring at her lens. A man shooting another man in the head at close range. Another man, a car tire around his torso, clamping his arms down tight. A hand from outside the frame pours gas over his head. Then sets him on fire with a cigarette lighter. The man’s mouth opens in a silent scream as the flames engulf his face.
She opens her eyes, her hands clamped around her face. Silence. And now here she is, covering another war. Only this time, it’s in her own country, writer and director Alex Garland’s the “Civil War” between forces from the rebel states of California and Texas, against Washington D.C.
I’m not going to bore you with speculation about whether this move depicts something that might happen, perhaps after another potential Trump administration in the U.S - you can read that somewhere else. But the dystopian America Garland has created is compelling. A suicide bomber races into a crowd that’s demanding water from the police. Uniformed, non-government soldiers wearing children’s sunglasses fill mass graves with plain-clothes victims of executions. Dogs roam free. A burned-out, crashed helicopter sits in the parking lot of an abandoned JC Penney store. Refugee camps proliferate, full of Americans.
I’ve seen this movie twice now, and felt compelled to write about it. The first time I saw it alone and the second I went with a good female photographer and photo editor friend who has covered Latin America for decades. I’ve discussed it with other friends who’ve seen it, friends who’ve spent time covering real wars, not just drug wars. One of those peeps told me it was the best depiction he had seen of war photography on the big screen, and I agreed with him, as best as it is in my capacity to do so never having documented war up close myself.
I’ve spent the last few days figuring out why I liked this movie so much.
Firstly, the narrative is new and nuanced. We’re so used to seeing or reading about white, male war correspondents living out their dramatic, PTSD-esque tragedy against the background of a brown or black developing country, their pathos the focus, their pain the burden they’ve secretly been looking for all their lives to bear so they can actually feel like they have meaning in this world.
Kirsten Dunst’s character Smith is none of that. Not only is she female, but she is refreshingly low-key and self-contained, opinionated and softly spoken. Her ego is tucked away somewhere between her neon yellow nylon vest and her Kevlar. Smith, weary of war and her work, is forced into the position of babysitting and mentoring the young, aspiring conflict photographer Jessie (played by Cailee Spaeny) as she struggles with her own pesky disillusionment with journalism. Her existentialism is given voice by Sammy (played by the perfectly under-stated Stephen McKinley Henderson), an older New York Times correspondent along for the ride.
I related to Smith’s disillusionment, which is why I think the film also stuck with me. More than three decades deep into journalism, I am wrestling with it now more than ever, especially after the slow death of VICE News. Are the risks we take worth it? Does it generate impact the way it used to? At the end of the day, is a lot of what we do worth anything more than a decent dinner conversation? I’ll let you know how that reckoning ends if it ever does.
I understood the contempt Smith feels as her male colleague Joel (played by the excellent Wagner Moura - please see the Tropa Elite movies he stars in if you haven’t already) confesses he’s getting an erection from listening to nearby gunfire. And her contempt mixes with her voyeurism. She too wants to go take a look at what was happening in the exchange of fire they could hear. That gives way to a fantastic execution scene (sorry, that’s the only word for it) set to Del La Soul’s “Say No More.” You have to see it and feel it to believe it.
I also saw myself in Spaeny’s Jessie (twenty years ago in my case). Eager. Some excessive risk-taking. Adoration of her older colleagues. Adrenaline and fear mixed with anxiety and anticipation. Not being careful about what she is wishing for, that kind of thing.
Another reason the movie kept calling me back was because of some of the silly inaccuracies. Joel, who is the writer to Smith’s pictures, asks not a single decent question to anyone during the entire movie. He writes down not one word, name, observation or fact anywhere, about anything. Perhaps he’s such a pro that writing his stories about their 2,000-mile trip across the United States from memory is going to be a breeze? I doubt it.
The final scene, and Smith’s demise, was also deeply troubling, not only because it was a silly ending (Jessie was way more likely to have been killed than Smith during the final shoot-out frenzy giving her reckless shooting moves) but because even the way she moved during it was, well, totally not how it would have gone down. I realize calling on Hollywood for being unrealistic may seem infantile, but I just want you guys to know that some of that stuff is bullshit.
Of course, a Hollywood movie wouldn’t be such a thing without a bit of bullshit. That’s no reason not to go see it if you enjoy watching women in fresh narratives, free of gender biases and cliches. And please report back if you do.