Cinema: Film “Civil War”: The war is breathing down our necks

Texas and California joined forces to overthrow the President of the United States. A cruel civil war is raging in large parts of the country. The tyrant in the White House decided in his third term to order air strikes on his own population. Propaganda plays on the radio around the clock and the streets of New York City are deserted. Demonstrations are blown up by suicide bombers. As was once the case in the Wild West, various militias have the rule of thumb in the hinterland. The future of the country plunged into chaos is completely uncertain.

If British Hollywood director Alex Garland has his way, this scenario could happen the day after tomorrow. His feature film “Civil War” takes place in a here and now that cannot be distinguished from the reality of life in 2024. The viewer is not granted any futuristic details, perhaps in order to put them off with “science fiction”. The war is breathing down our necks – that is the clear tone of the work.

In fact, Uncle Sam’s internal decay has been evoked more or less hysterically since Donald Trump’s presidency at the latest – by both political poles of the USA. While the conservative camp sees a general decline in morals (wokeism) and a “border invasion” as harbingers of hell, the liberals want to suspect a racist dictatorship. The fact is that the fronts in the land of unlimited possibilities seem increasingly impossible to overcome. And it is also a fact that social inequality across the Atlantic is more visible than it has been in 100 years. Even the most remote, well-behaved small towns are plagued by homelessness and drug epidemics that not even Soviet old wives’ tales would have dared to imagine.

Undoubtedly, the USA is pretty fucked in all available parallel universes and the film’s protagonist Lee Smith, a war photographer, takes a professional look at the misery of her homeland. Shredded corpses, huge pools of blood and burning people are among her highly decorated motifs – she calls her dubious work “documenting”. Kirsten Dunst, who has been rather rare as an actress in the last ten years, plays the hardened journalist with an unavoidable penchant for violent pornography. 23-year-old Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), on the other hand, is still green behind the ears, but is determined – Lee is her role model – that she too wants to go to the front. Likewise colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) and former editor Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson).

Off to Washington DC, where the fall of the sovereign can only be days. The goal is an interview with the president on his last days. The four of them set off in an old, white minivan, the symbol of the American suburban family, along highways full of burned-out vehicles and corpses. The most fitting soundtrack for the apocalypse in almost 50 years is playing in the background: “Rocket USA” by the apathetic proto-punk duo Suicide.

In general, “Civil War” is a tough, extremely brutal film that wants to look excellent. The indie production company A24 (Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Whale, Mid90s) invested a budget of 50 million dollars – the company’s most expensive film to date. In keeping with the sensationalism of the photographers portrayed, the camera does not pan away when someone is shot in the head at close range. Or when Jessie ends up in a mass grave of non-white people. Or when two looters slowly bleed out while dangling in a car wash. A civil war is no picnic and this is about apocalyptic realism at all costs.

Bombed out and abandoned, the relics of society stand on the side of the road. Supermarkets behind attack helicopters, housing estates in front of tanks. Relaxed minutes on the motorways and country roads are used in the road movie to develop a character study of the main characters. It only works very sparingly because there is little room other than head rushing and stress trauma. Why does Lee keep going to the most extreme regions on earth? Because it makes her feel alive, she admits, and continues to stare with empty eyes.

The ending of this film is just as strange as its excessive violence, just as strangely pornographic as the “successfully” captured images in Lee and Jessie’s camera. At the very end, a colorful group of black women and Hispanic men in uniforms pose over the shot president. He didn’t have “Trump” tattooed on his forehead, but the gesture is clear. So a victory over racism? Many stark images and the lack of any political analysis make “Civil War” a rather cowardly, dangerous work that hides its agenda behind general warnings and yet self-confidently reproduces the same clichés that superficially divide the real country. No questions about capital and labor. No answers to poverty and hunger. At least one thing is honestly stated in the film: no one knows what will happen after the revolution.

“Civil War”: Great Britain 2024, directed and written by Alex Garland. With: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny. 109 minutes. Start: April 18th