StevieKing

Having seen and loved 28 Days Later, Civil War felt like an uneven companion piece to the former (both written by Garland). There are overlaps of the same character and story structure. A group of four stragglers struggle to traverse and survive in the wasteland of a bygone imperial power.Each character of the group is a reflection or contrast of the protagonist. Joel represents part of why Lee does what she does - to feel alive; an adrenaline junkie who doesn’t know how to walk away from danger. You even have a young and old character who insert themselves to the protagonist’s quest, like in 28 Days Later. In Civil War’s case, Jessie and Sammy are counterpoints reflecting and exploring Lee’s beginning and her predictable **** a film exploring how and why war journalists pursue their stories, it’s a promising multiple character study that doesn’t spend enough time exploring any of their interiority. It’s stumbles the balancing act of letting us sit with the emotions and thoughts these characters have about the people and places they are photographing. Even Lee Miller, who’s mentioned early on and is an inspiration for Kirsten Dunst’s protagonist, imbued her subjects with her emotions. She didn’t photograph war out of apathy; she photograph with clarity and humanity. Where the balancing act completely comes apart is failing to justify or provide context for a modern American civil war and how that motivates and informs the characters’ photography. Setting can provide a foundation for the film’s questions and themes, acting as an external metaphor for the characters’ interior journey. To bring it back to Lee Miller: WWII, the genocidal desecration of Europe’s Jews and countless others, and the fall of **** Fascism informed Lee Miller’s photography just as much as her photography now informs our understanding of that moment in history. We’re told Kirsten Dunst’s photography has that same effect, but we’re not shown it. Just an atmospheric montage of horrors she’s captured.Maybe you can argue the lack of context for how and why there’s a civil war happening again in America speaks to the senseless nihilism of the problems we face today. I’d argue that still doesn’t explain why these characters are navigating this speculative-genre hellscape. How does their gender, race, class, personal struggles shape what they think about this conflict and why - based on their backgrounds - do they choose to capture the subjects of their photographs. I think what’s happening in Gaza is a harrowing real world example of how war journalism and photography can be skewed based on who is telling the story and why they are choosing to tell it.Circling back to Garland’s 28 Days Later, the premise of a zombie outbreak in 2000s UK doesn’t fall apart because it’s so far removed from reality. You don’t need as much political context as would you explaining a war, and the themes of rage and fear are still explored through the characters, the plot, and the setting. It’s not to say there aren’t political readings of 28 Days Later that reflect or critique where the UK was in the early 2000s, but the premise is not reliant on those interpretations compared to Civil War. Whether you view 28 Days Later as a political allegory, or a broader scifi exploration of humanity’s relationship with rage and fear, you still have enough context to justify either or both interpretations.

“There's nothing left of that will or passion. They've been completely worn down by the minutia of the bureaucratic machine and the meaningless busyness it breeds.“ In Kurosawa’s Ikiru, bureaucrat Kanji Watanabe is given six months to live before he dies of stomach cancer. His last few months on earth exposes the monotony of bureaucracy and why it is antithetical to living. How it deprives people of their life, joy, and meaning. How government institutions that are meant to serve the living are run by people who are bred to be dead inside, unfeeling and uncaring of the public they represent. But that monotony is not only present in Watanabe’s bureaucratic desk job, stamping his days away with his own seal of approval. It’s there with his son, who is waiting by the minute to inherit his father’s money; with his brother reminding him constantly how lonely his work has made him, goading him to find a new wife; with the fast, unforgiving pace of modern life in post-WWII Japan. Then what is Kurosawa’s answer to monotony? How do you cure something more malignant than cancer? For Watanabe, meaning and purpose aren’t found in thrill-seeking, numbing himself with partying and drinking, which only worsen the cancer of his monotony. He can share joy by spending time with his younger coworker, living vicariously through her, but he can’t replicate what gives her purpose. Watanabe sees clearly that you have to find and create your own. The opposite of bureaucracy is action, creating and building something that can be realized and used by the public to enrich their lives. By fast-tracking plans for a children’s playground, and pushing through the petty politics that would normally halt this kind of project, Watanabe solidifies his life’s purpose and ensures a future for the neighborhood children to live a life free of the monotony that dominated his.