My primary problem with it is that it goes so far out of its way not to draw conclusions or to create controversy, that what’s left utlimately felt completely hallow and borderline cowardly. Lots has been said about its lack of worldbuilding, it’s dismissal of why the war is happening or examination of the politics at play. I’m not going to retread that, as I think you can make the arguement that isn’t really the point (although I suspect he actually avoids it because Garland has a sort of status quo anti-politics and absolutely no understanding and nothing to say on the subject).
The deeper problem is that refusal to engage with the world and content of his film continues everywhere else too. Wherever he may be trying to say something implicit, it’s also undermined by his own tendencies and unconcious biases.
Take the subject of journalism for example. Our quartet of journos seem driven not by the lofty ideals of neutrality and institutional journalism that they discuss but, depending on each of their shallow archetypes, ambition, thrill seeking, and a personal sense of superiority instead of actually engaging with the conflict around them. Which would be fine if the film intended to make any kind of point about the reverence for these insitutions or the potential hypocrisy / self-denial that they react the same ways as anybody else despite their protests to the contrary (take Kirsten Dunst’s scoffing referral to her parents holed up on a farm, pretending that none of this is happening, for example, while her own work in the conflict is also that of a passive observer who compartmentalises the realities of what she sees), but it shrinks away from that too. It never really examines their motivation, they don’t really have character arcs, and any implicit criticism or commentary on the ethics of photojournalism and sensationalising suffering for profit, for example, is rather undercut by Garland’s own frequent media commentary about the importance of mainstream journalism and putting that institution on a pedestal. For a far better, actually very low budget (but still popcorn and pulp fun) film examination of those themes, people would be better served by watching Gareth Edwards’ Monsters for example.
Finally, on the journalism subject, there’s also a strangely steadfast refusal to actually show our characters actually do any. They take a small handfull of artful, contextless images. They barely ever bother to speak to anyone or engage with people around them (the ragtag military squad, the civilians in the refugee camp etc). The few vanishingly few times Wagner Moura gets out his notebook to go and speak to someone, the soundtrack swells and we’re conciously denied their point of view.
The film has the same problem when it tries to address the horrors of war or any implicit points it may trying to make about subjects like race or sex or nationalism.
Take the much lauded, uncomfortable scene with Jesse Plemons for example. It certainly feels like Garland is trying to make an implicit point about who would be the primary targets in an American civil war. There’s a reason many, many of the bodies in the pit are black or brown. We understand why Plemon’s character is imeadiately more dismissive and suspicious of the two asian reporters before he pulls the trigger. But even that message is somewhat undercut when the people of colour in the movie are largely there to be killed, when the two asian reporters have had maybe a minute of screentime and we know absolutely nothing about them, and Stephen McKinley’s character falls into both tropes of the ‘wise old black man’ and the black saviour who must die to allow the rest to escape. And there’s certainly not any actual interrogation or discussion of what creates and perpetuates these kinds predjudices beneath the thin surface of society (I suspect because doing so too deeply might force Garland to come to some uncomfortable conclusions about his own views).
Similarly, while I don’t think a movie on the subject of war needs to be a relentless conveyor belt of every type of horror and inhumanity that happens in warzones, it’s feels very apparent to me that the movie either doesn’t want, or feels it can’t, really go there while still being watched by the (largely American) audience it wants. In fact, Garland has essentially said so in interviews, stating that in order to set in America and for it to get a release they essentially had to self censor a lot of the kind of atrocities that happen in war elsewhere.
I have other criticisms too - from its predictibility, to nitpicks about journalist / military behaviour, to the really rather irritating soundtrack of Garland’s spotify playlist, or the fact that stylistically it’s an oddly incongruous romanticisation of the 90s (film cameras, old internet, everybody ‘cool’ wears a band tee shirt etc) - but they’re probably not worth getting into here.
Ultimately…
It’s a film about journalism that doesn’t contain any journalism.
It’s a ‘It Could Happen Here’ film about the horrors of war that decides to pull its punches and create a sort of American exceptionalism.
It’s a film about American society and civil wars that’s completely ahistorical, anti-material, and refuses to engage in the subject.
It’s a film that could be a character piece, except eveyone is a shallow archetype.
It’s an empty void of a film. The visual equivalent of a monthly New York Times article that’s required to be 2000 words on a hot-button topic but clearly has nothing to say.
I thought it was a nice movie that showed the effect war has on civilians. Why’d you dislike it?
My primary problem with it is that it goes so far out of its way not to draw conclusions or to create controversy, that what’s left utlimately felt completely hallow and borderline cowardly. Lots has been said about its lack of worldbuilding, it’s dismissal of why the war is happening or examination of the politics at play. I’m not going to retread that, as I think you can make the arguement that isn’t really the point (although I suspect he actually avoids it because Garland has a sort of status quo anti-politics and absolutely no understanding and nothing to say on the subject).
The deeper problem is that refusal to engage with the world and content of his film continues everywhere else too. Wherever he may be trying to say something implicit, it’s also undermined by his own tendencies and unconcious biases.
Take the subject of journalism for example. Our quartet of journos seem driven not by the lofty ideals of neutrality and institutional journalism that they discuss but, depending on each of their shallow archetypes, ambition, thrill seeking, and a personal sense of superiority instead of actually engaging with the conflict around them. Which would be fine if the film intended to make any kind of point about the reverence for these insitutions or the potential hypocrisy / self-denial that they react the same ways as anybody else despite their protests to the contrary (take Kirsten Dunst’s scoffing referral to her parents holed up on a farm, pretending that none of this is happening, for example, while her own work in the conflict is also that of a passive observer who compartmentalises the realities of what she sees), but it shrinks away from that too. It never really examines their motivation, they don’t really have character arcs, and any implicit criticism or commentary on the ethics of photojournalism and sensationalising suffering for profit, for example, is rather undercut by Garland’s own frequent media commentary about the importance of mainstream journalism and putting that institution on a pedestal. For a far better, actually very low budget (but still popcorn and pulp fun) film examination of those themes, people would be better served by watching Gareth Edwards’ Monsters for example.
Finally, on the journalism subject, there’s also a strangely steadfast refusal to actually show our characters actually do any. They take a small handfull of artful, contextless images. They barely ever bother to speak to anyone or engage with people around them (the ragtag military squad, the civilians in the refugee camp etc). The few vanishingly few times Wagner Moura gets out his notebook to go and speak to someone, the soundtrack swells and we’re conciously denied their point of view.
The film has the same problem when it tries to address the horrors of war or any implicit points it may trying to make about subjects like race or sex or nationalism.
Take the much lauded, uncomfortable scene with Jesse Plemons for example. It certainly feels like Garland is trying to make an implicit point about who would be the primary targets in an American civil war. There’s a reason many, many of the bodies in the pit are black or brown. We understand why Plemon’s character is imeadiately more dismissive and suspicious of the two asian reporters before he pulls the trigger. But even that message is somewhat undercut when the people of colour in the movie are largely there to be killed, when the two asian reporters have had maybe a minute of screentime and we know absolutely nothing about them, and Stephen McKinley’s character falls into both tropes of the ‘wise old black man’ and the black saviour who must die to allow the rest to escape. And there’s certainly not any actual interrogation or discussion of what creates and perpetuates these kinds predjudices beneath the thin surface of society (I suspect because doing so too deeply might force Garland to come to some uncomfortable conclusions about his own views).
Similarly, while I don’t think a movie on the subject of war needs to be a relentless conveyor belt of every type of horror and inhumanity that happens in warzones, it’s feels very apparent to me that the movie either doesn’t want, or feels it can’t, really go there while still being watched by the (largely American) audience it wants. In fact, Garland has essentially said so in interviews, stating that in order to set in America and for it to get a release they essentially had to self censor a lot of the kind of atrocities that happen in war elsewhere.
I have other criticisms too - from its predictibility, to nitpicks about journalist / military behaviour, to the really rather irritating soundtrack of Garland’s spotify playlist, or the fact that stylistically it’s an oddly incongruous romanticisation of the 90s (film cameras, old internet, everybody ‘cool’ wears a band tee shirt etc) - but they’re probably not worth getting into here.
Ultimately…
It’s a film about journalism that doesn’t contain any journalism.
It’s a ‘It Could Happen Here’ film about the horrors of war that decides to pull its punches and create a sort of American exceptionalism.
It’s a film about American society and civil wars that’s completely ahistorical, anti-material, and refuses to engage in the subject.
It’s a film that could be a character piece, except eveyone is a shallow archetype.
It’s an empty void of a film. The visual equivalent of a monthly New York Times article that’s required to be 2000 words on a hot-button topic but clearly has nothing to say.