Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 09/14/24

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Saturday, September 14, 2024

Civil War (Alex Garland, 2024)

Kirsten Dunst in Civil War

Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman, Nelson Lee, Evan Lai, Jesse Plemons. Screenplay: Alex Garland. Cinematography: Rob Hardy. Production design: Caty Maxey. Film editing: Jake Roberts. Music: Geoff Barrow, Ben Salisbury.

Alex Garland's Civil War grows out of our current political tensions, which means that it's either too timely or not timely enough to be entirely successful. At least Garland has the wisdom not to give his his fable too much direct correspondence to political actuality: There's no way, of course, that Texas and California would be allied secessionist states. What it does have is a kind of physical actuality, meaning a lot of bloody conflict. It also has some terrific performances, starting with Kirsten Dunst's tough photojournalist, Lee, a long way from Mary Jane Watson in Spider-Man (Sam Raimi, 2002) or the title role in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006). She's matched well by Wagner Moura as her reporter partner, Joel. I knew I had seen Moura before but I couldn't quite place him until I was reminded that, 40 pounds heavier, he was Pablo Escobar in the series Narcos. Aside from unlikely alliances, the story stretches credulity that the intensely focused Joel would choose to bring along on a perilous journey an aging, overweight reporter like Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and a callow young photographer like Jessie (Cailee Spaeny). But as I said, it's a fable, a story meant to make a point -- or rather several points. One of them is that journalism depends on a sometimes cold-hearted pursuit of the truth. Another is that political stability is a fragile thing. And that both are in perpetual danger. If Civil War fails in making those points effectively, and I think it does, it's because the medium, an action movie, is inadequate to deliver the message.