Cities laid to waste. Journalists shot on sight. A head of state ordering air strikes on his own citizens. Crackpots in combat gear pointing assault rifles at civilians… Not a ripped-from-the-headlines news story, but a trailer for the latest film from writer-director Alex Garland, who in previous projects trained his sights on artificial intelligence (Ex Machina), ecology (Annihilation) and toxic masculinity (Men). The title of the new film is Civil War. Hmm, I wonder what that’s about.
This last comment is not as disingenuous as it might appear. What kind of animal is Civil War, exactly? Is it fiction, documentary, a preview of coming attractions? Wish fulfilment or warning? The official synopsis refuses to commit, beyond promising “an adrenaline-fueled thrill ride” and – in case that’s not exciting enough for a public already wrestling with fake news and election denial – encouraging them to “EXPERIENCE IT IN IMAX”. Presumably the publicists drew the line at the word “romp”, though one is still left questioning the usefulness, not to mention tastefulness, of such an exercise in a US election year when it looks increasingly as though democracy itself is at stake.
And this from the production company A24, a name synonymous with what is nowadays labelled as “elevated” genre. In other words, The Witch (2015), Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019) are hailed by mainstream critics as more than mere horror films since they’re deemed to be “about” something. This is a stance with which I am vehemently at odds, because horror stories since before the dawn of cinema have always been “about” something, and it’s not my fault if fairweather fans need to have their metaphors spelled out for them. But what could Civil War be “about”, other than a second American civil war? Does it even have a subtext, or is it simply civil war reenactment with a 21st-century twist? And will the participation of award-winning actors such as Kirsten Dunst and Nick Offerman be enough to class it as “elevated “ as opposed to, say, a video-on-demand action masterpiece such as Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning starring Scott Adkins.
If the publicists aren’t taking their film seriously, the average internaut most definitely is. In heated discussions on YouTube and Reddit, prospective audiences are earnestly trying to work out what side Civil War is on. Many have already decided it’s a documentary avant le fait, and refuse to be thrown off course by the seeming paradox of Texas and California joining forces to lead a secession of seventeen other states from the union – a titbit one suspects was dropped into the trailer in an attempt to forestall accusations of left- or right-wing bias. Outside its big cities, the comment-leavers hypothesise, the perennially liberal-presenting California has just as many Republican strongholds and tax-dodging fat cats as Texas, so this coalition is wholly plausible. Others find the entire premise disquieting. “Whatever message this movie is trying to convey, I guarantee it’s going to be wrongly interpreted by the worst possible people,” worries one contributor, while another chimes in with “Let’s amp up the division, baby!!!!” and it’s hard to tell if they’re being sardonic.
But… Civil War! Could that title be any more on the nose if it tried? Perhaps Garland and A24 think they’re being fearless in calling a spade a spade and slapping a label on the swirling amorphous anxieties of millions of people. But – unless the writer-director doesn’t wrongfoot us by introducing unexpected paranormal or surreal elements the trailers don’t even hint at – must it be so literal?
One wonders if decades of genre cinema might have been prepping us for civil war all along
Just as one suspects the deluge of young adult dystopias (from Battle Royale to The Hunger Games to The Maze Runner) that went into overdrive at the start of the century were a method of mentally preparing their target demographic for a bleak future riven by socioeconomic instability, global warming and being gunned down by classmates, one also wonders if decades of genre cinema might have been inadvertently prepping us for civil war all along. Take another look at zombie holocausts Dawn of the Dead (1978) or World War Z (2013), pandemic thrillers such as The Crazies (1973) or Contagion (2011), post-apocalyptic scenarios such as Mad Max 2 (1981) or The Road (2009), cities trashed in Cloverfield (2008) and umpteen Godzilla movies. Recurring motifs in the aforementioned films include panic in the streets, martial law, scapegoating, paranoia, distrust in officialdom, a battle for diminishing resources, and trying to not get eaten. But while horror and science fiction do what they say on the tin, they also present us with multiple layers to unpick and analyse. What can Civil War add, other than stripping away all metaphorical nuance to serve up its unambiguous premise on a platter?
America is already split into two seemingly irreconcilable factions, and the rest of us can only look on in alarm as the situation escalates. Civil War – the movie – seems expressly designed to exploit these anxieties, while the sort of spectators who buy into it as “an adrenaline-fueled thrill ride” will almost certainly be the first to break out the assault weapons when the shit hits the fan, so they can act out their fantasies for real.
Anne Billson is a film critic, novelist and photographer
