Recommendations of the Editorial team
Alex Garland is a driven artist. Because he received a lot of encouragement. Rightly so. At the age of 26 he published his debut novel “The Beach” and, with his violence, destroyed the eternal myth of Thailand as a backpacker-lonely planet paradise. His screenplay for “28 Days Later” led to the Renaissance of the Zombie cinema to this day, albeit with the much more boring sprinters instead of the scary more creep.
With his screenplay for “Sunshine” Alex Garland revived the philosophical science fiction film in 2004, and his congenial director Danny Boyle also made the Space-Aesthetic preparatory work on Christopher Nolan’s best film, “Interstellar” from 2014. For “DREDD”, not only wrote the script, but also took over the record Directed by a overwhelmed man named Pete Travis. “Dredd” is one of the most successful but most unknown comic films of modern times.
It’s also about the priority, just nobody would admit that
Since his film “Annihilation” (2018), he was very interested in the warfare, and in almost every interview about his last work, “Civil War” from last year, Alex Garland spoke about his vision. With “Civil War” he wanted to make a film about war that is not a war film, but an anti -war film. An anti-war film, but still tells with the means of authentic sound and jerky images through 360-degree cameras. Alex Garland would be the first, he knows. Because there is not a single anti -war film that depicts military violence and is actually not a war film.
In the past 45 years, no director has succeeded in an anti -war film with a war film. Coppola, Spielberg, Malick, Eastwood, Nolan: Every anti -war film with theaters of war, “Apocalypse Now”, “Saving Private Ryan,” The Thin Red Line “,” Letters From Iwo Jima “and” Dunkirk “is a war film. War is the worst invention of man, the directors agree. But none of them manage to expose the thrill of the cinema experience to the viewers. Why should you want that too. It is also about the capacity result, only nobody would admit it.
A simple attempt to upgrade your own work
With “Warfare” Alex Garland is now trying to make such a “realistic representation of war” (you can only write this phrase in quotation signs) that in the film credits he hides scenes with his co-director in order to prove the authenticity of the replica of his warfare. Because his co-director is an ex-Navy Sea Seal, Ray Mendoza, who guides the actors in their movements. A somewhat too easy -looking attempt by Garland to upgrade your own work. You have to keep Ray Mendoza to do that this film should map its own experiences in Iraq. If he describes “Warfare” as a successful illustration of war, who could contradict him?
But “Warfare” also works intensively with image and sound (for example with the temporary deafness and dazzling after a detonation that has become popular by “saving private Ryan”), he works with corpses and destruction, so much that you no longer want to look away. “Warfare” is thus the victim of his own claim to warn against war. Perhaps no-brainer action films like Peter Berg’s impressive “Lone Survivor” are the more honest variant because we don’t feel bad when we look at the Mark-Wahlberg vehicles if we don’t feel bad enough.
“Warfare” is a good film until siege
“Warfare” tells in 95 minutes and in real time the escape of a platoon from Navy Seals fighting in the Iraq war from a residential building that is besieged by rebels. No land takeover, hostage frames, no epic military maneuvers with decisive tactical conquests – it is Garland’s attempt to find “the big one on a small scale”.
“Warfare” is a good film until siege. The tense look (also of the viewer) through the rifle scope on possible opponents, in addition to clearly recognizable civilians, underlaid with hasty breathing, is a cinema cliché of combat preparation. But always effective. The silence in the streets is uncomfortable, precisely because the chirping of the birds is so beautiful. The soldiers drink from their water bottles, the river of the water in plastic is the only quickly irritating noise. You feel hypersensory in the first 20 minutes. It would have to pop somewhere soon. And it does. All the more remarkable, after the beginning of the inferno, the focus on the seriously wounded. For them, an evacuation plan applies that could not have been guessed as a non-military technician. A armored car is called up to pick up the disused, And only then If another armored car is to be stated to evacuate the non-wounded people.
It does not have to be a claim of an (anti) war filmmaker to show both warring parties fairly. Malick, Spielberg, Coppola and Nolan didn’t even bother. Eastwood faced the immense challenge by praising both sides with their own film: “Flags of our Fathers” and that “Letters from iwo Jima”.
Like a memorial for the many fallen, for whom nobody is interested
For Alex Garland, the Iraqi partisans such as teles game characters, non-playable characters are, which flashly flash on the roofs on the left or right. That is not bad, because his criticism of the Iraq war goes deeper elsewhere. In the gradual bombed house, in which the Navy Seals hide, still lives a family that will remain in the ruins. The handling of the troop with two Iraqi allies who can wear US uniforms is much more dramatic, but are the first to be sent out of the house and the opposing fire. They know that they are treated like second -class people. Even from the American hero figures of the Platoon (with great representations by Will Poulter and Joseph Quinn).
The bones of one of the two Iraqi, torn by a bomb, lie on the battlefield of the street. Nobody pays attention to the massacred body. Everyone fights over him. The torn leg and the torso are like memorials for the many fallen, for which nobody is interested. At the end of the battle, when the Americans are evacuated, they are still there.