Apocalyptic wet dream desperately searching for point
I went to see Civil War with Beloved last night. We were both super keen on it. And we were both very disappointed. It’s like blood porn without any pleasure at the end.
First of all, too many of the scenes are way too long when not altogether unnecessary. Like the one where they go shopping and the old photojournalist is made to smile by the younger one when trying on a dress. What the fuck was the point of that? It wasn’t well acted either. It felt like the bucket-list item of a first-year film student. Shoot Scene Where Protagonists Reveal They Are Humans And Also Women With Curves.
Look, in a previous life I made films, too. No, you never heard of them and that’s a good thing. Point is, I get how one can get caught into certain ideas, scenes, visuals and essentially fall in love with watching yourself film. That’s why you hire editors whose judgment you trust so that when they tell you to stop with the self-gratification and remember the people who’ll give you their time and money to consume your work can we get back to the story please, you get back to the story.
Except in this case there is none. The whole hour and forty-nine minutes is pointless chaos. I watched January 6 on television. There was a lot of chaos. But there was also a point: The rioters wanted to overturn the election and keep Donald Trump in the White House.
In Civil War, there’s the armed forces of California and Texas working to (non-spoiler alert) get rid of the sitting president but other than putting a bullet in his head there’s really no point. Get rid of him then what? These are people who have enough resources and wherewithal to have tanks and helicopters and well-equipped soldiers yet they don’t have a goal beyond killing one particular human whose crimes, real or imagined, aren’t even hinted at. Like, did he deserve to die, at least? Not a clue.
This much undefined chaos just doesn’t work. Take the journalists who are meant to be the heroes. They all behaved like colossal morons at least twice each (switching cars at full speed on the highway to go into the vehicle of someone you don’t know in the middle of a war? the hell?) and also they’re like magical unicorns who hang around taking dramatic pictures of live fighting without getting a single scratch or stray bullet except that one time one of them stood up and stayed, stupidly, big and tall right in the line of fire. Can we keep the shark-jumping realistic, at least?
Where the film is a little less of a failure is in its portrayal of the crazies who take up arms independently. The guys at the gas station torturing the two looters they caught, say. Or the militia dude very well portrayed by Jesse Plemons, the only actual actor acting properly in this film. He’s pitch perfect. And also realistic: he has a point and a purpose. Both his point and purpose are evil, to be sure. But he’s logical in what he’s doing.
Too many people who’ve watched violence on a screen assume anyone can fall into bloodshed. It’s not true. Deliberately hurting people at close range is extraordinarily difficult for humans to do. Gratuitous violence is not common. Most people who are violent have some kind of reason — in the case of the actor portrayed by Plemons, getting rid of people who aren’t “acceptable” Americans by shooting them dead and throwing their bodies in a hole. He is remarkably humane with the people who in his estimation are acceptable Americans. So that portrayal was very well done indeed. This should have been the heart of the movie.
The overwhelming impression I was left with is that this is a film made by someone who doesn’t know American society. I have roamed these (still, somehow) United States very far and very wide in my time on this planet and as is my wont I talk to everyone I meet. I listen to them, too.
And I do mean everyone. I went running with someone who never goes anywhere without at least two fully-loaded firearms. I have dear friends who are so woke Bernie Sanders needs binoculars to see them on his left. I’ve had drinks with homeschooling hippies and hard-core Austrian-economics libertarians. I’ve argued with pot smoking academics. I am friends with successful business people including some whose wealth comes from selling weapons.
America is a crazy place, no two ways about it. But it works, sort of, because most people are fundamentally good. It’s a tiny minority that wants to control others. You recognize them by the way they yell most incoherently about freedom, claiming to perform god’s will despite their distinctly unchristian behaviour.
Are these people dangerous to democracy in America? You bet. That’s why the rest of us need to vote for good guys so the bad ones stay out of office.
Perhaps Civil War is a useful movie for those who need to be reminded that voting for people who aren’t institutional vandals is something worth getting off the couch for. It’s also visually impressive; if your on-screen entertainment of choice is mindless violence that’s a very good example of it.
Otherwise you should save your money.
