Civil War: A Review
My wife and I recently went and watched Alex Garland’s dystopian drama Civil War, which I have to say, was way better than I was expecting.
A cursory reading of recent history shows that there are different types of modern civil wars, from 1917 Russia, to 1930s Spain, to 1990s Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and to 2010s Syria. Often fought over ethnic, economic, religious, nationalist, and territorial issues. They are all brutal, dehumanizing, repressive, traumatic, and in the end, nobody really wins.
America has already had a civil war fought between the North and South on the subject of slavery. Garland’s movie likes to imagine a US civil war that is not North vs. South, conservative vs. progressive, or white vs. ethnic minorities. I think that is both the strength and weakness of the film.
On the downside is the price of realism.
The fact is that any future US civil war would probably be North vs. South, progressive vs. conservative, secular vs. religious, and multi-cultural vs. white homogeneity. It would be, in a sense, the first Civil War on replay, even if the fissures have moved on from on slavery to things like abortion, CRT, trans-ideology, censorship, taxation, and federal government coercion in more aspects of life.
If there was another US civil war - God forbid! - it would probably start similar to the way the 1861-65 civil war began!
Extreme voices in the media stoking rage against the “others” as intrinsically evil.
Conspiracy theories about how each group came to power and/or is planning to annihilate the other.
A belief that the current political arrangement cannot protect them against the other political tribe.
A single incendiary action that sparks the outbreak of hostilities.
Garland’s book lacks the realism of a civil war breaking out amidst current political and tribal faultlines in the US.
But that is not to say that the movie is without merit!
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On the upside, the genius of Garland’s movie is that while the President is the bad guy in the film, he’s not identified with any party, demographic, race, or religion. He’s just a guy who won’t let go of power (so obviously a Republican), but who has also made government intrusive and coercive (so obviously a Democrat). The fact that in the movie California and Texas are fighting on the same side against the federal government shows just how far Garland is going to make sure this movie is not a red vs. blue political divide that spills over into open conflict.
Garland’s message is that civil war leads to anarchy, it is brutal, and humanity’s capacity for cruelty and carnage is unleashed, in other words, it is a blood bath.
I have to say that the violence in the film is not cartoonish or Hollywoodesque, it is quite realistic, chillingly so. So you need a strong stomach for the gore. A character dubbed “White Supremacist Elton John” is a terrifying psychopath in the film. That said, some stuff was unrealistic. No infantry squad is going to storm a building, let alone the White House, with a photojournalist following beside them. Trust me, the journalists are back in the second and third echelons.
But it’s the human capacity for evil, for people to turn against their fellow citizens, against the neighbors, the senselessness of the violence, that is the message. I think the NYT review by Manahola Dargis gets it right. Garland’s message is, “We Have Met the Enemy and It Is Us.”
The line between good and evil is not the line between us and them, but the line that goes down the centre of our hearts.
There is a theological term for this, total depravity, the human propensity for rebellion and evil. Alex Garland’s Civil War is an abject lesson in not it’s theory, but its reality.
I am a civil war buff!! I really enjoyed your observations. And agree!! For the South it was also a limited federal government - states' rights! This is also central in American politics today,
"The line between good and evil is not the line between us and them, but the line that goes down the centre of our hearts."
We see what you did there... Solzhenitsyn ;)
Keep up the good commentary. Om nom nom.