Civil War Movie Review — Sucharita Tyagi
Movie dekhne ke 2 din baad review yeh likha mainey, took a while to fully come to terms with where I stand on this one. Will get into it detail mein bas abhi.
But I’ll tell you this, I haven’t seen a scarier film in a long, long time.
Ek unknown future year mein film set hai, but it could be happening right now as we speak, kyunki the world has not been taken over by Artific al intelligence in any obvious fashion. America char tukdo mein banta hai. Authoritarian president white house mein constitution ko thenga dikhaaye teesra term kar raha hai. While there is a movement to overthrow this government, there are also those fighting to keep them there. Aise mein war photojournalist Lee that’s Kirsten Dunst, aur reporter Joel, played by a devastatingly good Wagner Moura are driving from New York to the capital Washington DC to do an interview with the President. Roads in haalaat mein journalist ke liye bhi kisi fighting group se kam dangerous nahi hai, kab kaun kahaan se goli daag de pata nahi.
Will they make it? Will the president even talk to them? What has happened that brought the country to this point? Watch the movie and find out.
Alex Garland ke kaam se claim nahi kar sakti poori tarah main wakif hoon, par aap cursory bhi nigaah daalein unki films par, joh likhi ya direct kari hain, it’s obvious “post-apocalyptic future” is an area of deep interest to the author and filmmaker. 28 days later, Ex Machina, Annihilation, among others.
Maybe it’s the fact that we’re in an election year both in India and USA, or maybe it’s because I spend too much time on Twitter, par this film in PARTICULAR is closest to the kind of reality that makes your extremities go numb. We might not be swarmed by attractive, murderous robots anytime soon, but people uprooted from their homes of generations and made to live in refugee camps because brainwashed and radicalized civilians turned into legalized murderers by power-hungry politicians, is happening in the world, RIGHT now.
Started in 2022, Civil War takes from every war crime happening in the world currently, which in turn follows the blue print of those that have occurred before. It’s so RARE, so VERY rare that an American movie looks inward at what America and its divisive politics has done to the citizens in the name of “America number 1” branded nationalism and patriotism, without tsk tskin at “something” sepia-tinted that’s happening in the middle east somewhere which has “nothing to do with us”. In fact, during this road trip from hell, the journalists stop in a town where everyone is pretending things are all right, shops are open, and rich women are walking their dogs because this town is civilized. Until the camera tilts up and shows you the snipers standing on each rooftop ready to take you out, the SECOND one steps a foot out of line. Metaphor nahi toh kya hai.
In Garland’s America, WHAT radicalized people, has ceased to matter. All the film tells you, is that the damage is done, the nation is beyond repair. A sequence mein camera White House ke andar jaata hai, aur jab sab titar bitar dikhta hain, those shots are creepily exaggerated versions of what the whole world saw happen real-time in Washington DC on Jan 6, 2021, except this time it’s through the POV of an insurrectionist. Kuch saal pehle tak koi wildest imagination mein soch nahi sakta the ki Vice President ki jaan lene American citizen hi government building mein ghus jaayenge. Aur ab 3 saal baad, jab Sarkar shayad phir se badalne waali hai, yeh incident jaise bhool gaye hain log. Desperate fanaticism has given people such amnesia, that were this to happen again on a bigger scale, we’ll be wringing our hands thinking “What could have been done to stop this”?
Garland ki Civil War happens in a future jahaan par ab yeh sochne ka time nahi hai, governance aur anarchy ke beech sirf ek patla sa media ka dhaga latak raha hai. The film doesn’t quite assert who is the aggressor, and who the victim in any situation, bas people are killing each other, some instigating, some reacting. When you approach a room where a single man is laying on the floor wounded and he gets put of his misery by a single bullet, the film doesn’t even give you space to ponder on the reasons and choices that brought this man to that spot. He is just there, how and why don’t matter anymore. Internet and data are banned, social media doesn’t exist, hardly anything is being recorded on video, things are just happening.
You know usually jab filmon mein text likha aata hai telling you ki ab location change ho gayi, ab saal change ho gaya, flashback hai ye future, instantly film se baahar nikal jaati hoon main, the writing should talk to me like that itna directly. Par Civil War mein, jab distance ki sort of timeline chalti rehti hai, ki ab itne miles bache hain aur ab itne, it’s a constant little nudge if this fictional world being very, very real.
Kaafi debate chal rahe hain iss film par, ki kyun yeh ek side nahi leti. I would argue ki clearly dikh raha hai kiss side par hai film, and that is the side that’s the exact opposite of where global politics is headed right now. Its on the side of the JOURNALISTS who’ve lost their lives covering Israel’s barbaric warfare on Gaza, only for us to scroll past those visuals on our Instagram feeds as Presidents and Prime Ministers of major countries keep fueling genocides with more weapons. A young reporter Jessie, who’s tagging along with Lee, rapidly, a little TOO rapidly gets better at taking photos of violence and the dead. And you realise it’s because she just HAS that much to practice on, there is just that much going on, every shot is a moment worth trying to capture, to remember. While you wonder if this helicopter crashed in the parking lot of a supermarket will even generate a response from people anymore, and are we at the level of apathy already? At a refugee camp Jessie and Lee sit and talk about all awards Lee has won in her career as a photojournalist, and you think of Danish Siddiqui who won two Pulitzers, the second of which was posthumous. How extremists tried to stop him from documenting the truth, and how he kept on, until he couldn’t anymore.
By making the protagonist a female war photographer, likely estranged from her white family, who is not just risking her own life to keep telling stories, but is also training a younger woman to keep the job alive, the film is very much taking a side. The movie is through the POV of Lee. When she says ki jab bhi main war zones se photo bhejti thi, “I thought I was sending a warning home”, the film is telling you ki people on the wrong side of humanitarian crisis aren’t as brave as she is. Too much “Wokeness” hasn’t led America to its current position, too much unchecked greed for authority has. Warning wahi log ignore karte hain jinke paas yaa toh privilege ho, ya death wish.
Toh socho, apni jaan ko jokhim mein daal kar kaunsi side aap tak khabar pohonchaane ki koshish mein aur phir socho ki abhi bhi KYUN nahi sun rahe unki? What will it take?
Civil War is in movie theatres, jaa kar dekh aao, I dare say iss saal ki sabse zaroori filmon mein se ek hai.
So, on a scale of 1 to 10, Civil War is…..1 Jesse Plemons scene toh bhai. You see the actor show up, and you know ki ab plot mein kuch solid curve aane waala hai. Ismein bhi, you wont be disappointed!
