AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Alex Garland’s election-year provocation “Civil War” premiered Thursday at the SXSW Film and Television Festival, offering a violent vision of a near-future America at war with itself. revealed.
“Civil War,” said to be the biggest budget budget in A24 history, is a bold gamble that taps into some of the growing anxiety in a highly partisan era and ahead of a potentially grave event. be. president in november electure.
Written and directed by British filmmaker Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation), the film depicts the United States descending into all-out war, with the addition of California and Texas to form the “Army of the West.” I’m imagining it. The rebellion, along with the “Florida Alliance,” aims to overthrow the government led by the three-term president, played by Nick Offerman.
“Civil War” avoids much of the political overtones you might expect from such a movie by depicting the battle lines between blue and red states. And the story, too, largely dispenses with the context surrounding the conflict, focusing on the day-to-day adventures of a group of journalists played by Kirsten Dunst, Kailie Spaeny, Wagner Moura, and Stephen McKinley Henderson, and who are in awe of the fighting. trying to record. .
“This film is meant to be a conversation. I don’t think it’s about anything, it’s about something,” Garland told the crowd after the screening. “But this is a conversation. So it’s not a lecture.”
“A lot of times I was thinking about what I could avoid, what I could miss out on, and how I could make it a kind of two-way exchange,” he added.
The year of movies is showing signs of flaring up as the nation braces for an election in which some believe democracy is at stake.in Sunday’s Academy Awardshost Jimmy Kimmel had largely avoided talking about politics until he read former President Donald Trump’s critical social media posts.
“Isn’t your prison sentence already over?” Kimmel asked.
There are more films in the works that could add talking points. “The Apprentice,” starring Sebastian Stan as Trump, was filmed in the fall, but a release date has not yet been announced. However, none of them disappointed as much as “Civil War.”Some people argued Was the timing inappropriate?.
But “Civil War,” which opens in U.S. theaters on April 12, isn’t as sensational as some might have hoped or feared. There are some chilling moments, including one in which a gun-wielding extremist played by Jesse Plemons asks a journalist, “What kind of American are you?” But much of the film’s visceral power comes from its scenes of the United States as a battlefield, with refugee camps and mass graves.
The idea for the film came to Garland almost exactly four years ago, he said.
“I was surprised when I wrote it and sent it to A24 and they just said, ‘Yes, we’ll make it,'” said Garland, who shot the film in Georgia. “This is a brave film to finance, it really is.”
“I’ve never read a script like this,” said Dunst, who plays a veteran combat cameraman.
In the film, Dunst’s character Lee heads to Washington, D.C., to capture the final moments of the war. The group is joined by a young aspiring photographer, played by Spaney. Civil War, which culminates with the White House under siege, is in many ways a film about journalism.
“This is kind of a love letter to journalism and the importance of journalism,” Garland said. Garland said her father was a newspaper cartoonist. “Newspaper reporters…I wanted to make them heroes.”
Initial reactions to Civil War at SXSW were both great and bad. Some people didn’t know how to react right away. Among them was Mr. Spaeny, who said, “Wait a minute,” right after seeing it for the first time.
Mr. Garland was hesitant to make big political statements.
“I just want to say, I always try to make funny movies. I thought ‘Ex Machina’ was funny,” Garland said. “If people laugh, I’m happy because some of it is very (expletive) stupid. It’s supposed to be funny. It’s crazy. It’s a mess.”
