La Vie Not Rose

If I admire someone’s filmography is Kirsten Dunst’s. It’s impeccable, between comedies, memorable coming of age from The Virgin Suicides to Bring it On, and stirring dramas like Melancholia or Eternal Sunshine…, she is just always at the top. Her latest, Civil War just continues to add up to my compliments, in a hard and very strained way.

This intense drama set in the present day, follows a group of experienced war journalists on a mission to cross their country in the middle of a civil war to go interview the president of the United States before he gets overturned. This time, this powerful figure is extremely debilitated by the current conflict that has actually created a separation between Washington and regions like Texas and California. It doesn’t sound remote no? That’s the scary part of one of the best movies you’ll watch this year.

We don’t only assist to a naturally risky road trip, but to an upsetting set of confrontations, battles, and cruelty wrapped in a unique montage of sound, which immediately separates Civil War from other war movies. It feels close and raw in its own way. 

The reasons behind the conflict are not explicitly explained, but that quickly makes viewers start imagining what could have provoked this very scary and always very about-to-happen war. It resonates immediately with what happened with Trump supporters taking the Capitol just three years ago and the fragility of the democracies nowadays. 

Wagner Moura is Joel the writing press advocate, while Kirsten plays the glorified and sentimentally devastated Lee, a photojournalist crushed by her experiences in the field. Is one more worth it? Joel is equally damaged, but, we all take experiences differently and, he holds to other ideas and, of course, drugs, to keep going. For Lee, there is little to hang to. Well, maybe, a new disciple could change the destination of this train that seems to be crashing without stopping. 

Cailee Spaeny plays the young and – in appearance – reckless Jessie. A young amateur photographer who wants to join the quest of the main group of experienced professionals. I must say I had a big conflict with this character, as I said, it seems to me that in a way, motivates and injects new blood into this dying  – literally – team, but at the same time, it was such a reminder of how imprudent, careless and even selfish can youth can be. 

I don’t know if it’s my 35th birthday approaching, but I just couldn’t handle the careless impulsiveness of Jessie.

Another note, I can’t let pass by, is the way Civil War turns your stomach out during more than a couple of times. The sound goes out and they confront you with the aftermath of one of the cruellest sequences I’ve seen. It’s striking to find ourselves there after that madness (Jesse Plemons is only there for 5 minutes, but he totally makes them count).

As you can see, this movie is one of those that attach you to the characters from the first minutes. You start caring for them regardless of the obvious chaotical situation they’re in.

Why do they do that to themselves? For us as humankind or for the glory of being the author of an iconic photo or quote? How can an iconic image change consciousness around the globe? 

This chaos feels daunting and somehow familiar. The free manipulation of guns and no-man’s land landscape is again, so, so familiar. Crazy to describe these scenarios as “familiar”, right? What kind of world we live in that witnessing a massacre doesn’t make us react?

If you’re one of those people who has lived very close by the media and its work and effect, this movie hits profoundly on the valorization of this craft.  What war journalists do in their profession, more than admirable is remarkable. We understand here the term «heroic».

Lee mentions that she thought she was «sending a warning of ‘what not to do’ with every photo she took”, but she has come to an instance where everything seems to be lost. Desolation hits hard, even if it¡s just a very well-constructed fictitious story of just a “what if” situation…

I think one of the questions that this movie brings to the table is how normalized violence is and where eventually can take us. Indeed, despite all the images we have at our disposition,  with the opportunity to get a reality check in front of us, seeing on a gigantic screen what violation and aggression can get to be, and in fact, what millions are suffering beyond fiction, is not enough. What do we have to witness to react?

Through stressful, tense, bloody and very violent excerpts Lee’s desolation becomes more and more tangible. Yes, Jessie is learning the craft, but the price they pay – at least in my regard – seems so, so high.

That price journalists pay for, is what I take and value from this movie. Is about how fragile our eyes are but how strong – and stubborn – the ideas of some already violent rotted minds can be. Let’s hope that, those very dangerous ideas stay in fiction forever.