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‘Civil War’ Is an Amazing Film of Imagination and Cinematic Verve

I don’t remember any movie as all-consumingly hopeless and depressing..

In the confusion and chaos of today’s polarized political landscape—a time of violence, crime, insurrection and the rape of traditional human values—the plight of a free press is another threat to Democracy that isn’t explored as often as it should be. Director-screenwriter Alex Garland ’s Civil War is a Doomsday parable that makes up for lost time.

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As a cautionary tale about America’s inevitable self-destruction, the relentless cynicism of its narrative is often preposterous, but as a visionary look at the horrors that lie ahead for a great country on the rocks—and what America has done to itself already—this is one of the most harrowing yet exhilarating science-fiction epics ever made. I also find it perturbing to realize a film about everything wrong with America was made by a British director, not an American.

The setting is a dystopian, post-apocalyptic, not-too-distant future in which the world is divided between left-wing liberals and right-wing conservatives, the principles of truth and integrity in journalism are all but extinct, and covering the news is so dangerous that reporters are forced to wear helmets for self-protection. In what passes for a minuscule plot, excellent but often under-appreciated actor Kirsten Dunst plays Lee Smith, a fearless, respected photojournalist inspired by the great World War Two icon Lee Miller , the first woman to enter the Nazi bunker after the surrender of the Third Reich, who photographed herself naked in Adolf Hitler ’s bathtub for Life magazine. On assignment, she tries to make sense of the American predicament and responsibly, accurately and truthfully report the news. The film begins when she narrowly escapes a violent bombing that kills piles of people in the streets of New York. From there, she launches an 857-mile trip to D.C. to shoot what may be the last photograph of the president of the U.S., who has become the victim of a murderous mob that holds him prisoner in the White House. She’s accompanied by a small group of fellow reporters, including Jessie ( Cailee Spaeny ), a worshipful rookie girl who longs to be a carbon of Lee, Joel ( Wagner Moura ), a gung-ho seeker of scoops for Reuters who risks his life repeatedly to be in the center of the action, and Sammy (Broadway veteran Stephen Mckinley Henderson ), an aging survivor of “what’s left of the New York Times.” The arduous trajectory in Alex Garland’s script serves to guide the press (and the audience) through barren, blistered mine fields of war, across the deserted highways of abandoned cars and empty football stadiums converted to settings for killing sprees and makeshift graveyards for masses of discarded corpses. There’s one ghastly sequence with a sadistic racist maniac who massacres his victims with blasts of artillery fire, while wearing red sunglasses.

If you can keep your eyes open through the imagined depiction of the colorful horrors of the American future, you will never be bored: airstrikes aimed at innocent citizens, suicide bombers waving the stars and stripes, an amusement park called Winter Wonderland with images from the past, including a dead Santa Claus in the middle of a field—exactly like the one I saw in a front yard on a grisly tour of the ruins in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. There’s so much going on and so much devastation to watch in Civil War that it’s hard to know who is fighting whom. In the chaos, everybody is at war with everybody else. The film carefully avoids mentioning the names of any actual current politicians in either house of Congress, as well as the political parties on either side of the aisle, but once the press miraculously reaches Washington, they find the remains of the capital of Democracy in combat streets full of tanks, soldiers on fire, cherished monuments destroyed, and a sitting president in his third term who has disbanded the FBI and raped the U.S. Constitution, so you can fill in the blanks.

Like it or loathe it, Civil War is a film of savage imagery and motiveless carnage, compromised ideals and endless anarchy. Nihilism on film may be all the rage, but I don’t remember any movie as all-consumingly hopeless and depressing. It is the conviction of Alex Garland that if things continue in the political direction we’re experiencing now, then no one will be safe from annihilation in the next decade, with the free press in the middle, trying to record what they witness in the line of fire while the rest of us die. Look at it as a movie for posterity, and it becomes a worthwhile movie to savor, but nothing else—and you’ll survive. Admire Civil War as an amazing film of imagination and cinematic verve but nothing else—and you will, too.

‘Civil War’ Is an Amazing Film of Imagination and Cinematic Verve

SEE ALSO : ‘Under the Bridge’ Review: A Miniseries That Interrogates the True Crime Genre

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‘while at war’ (‘mientras dure la guerra’): film review | tiff 2019.

THR review: 'While at War,' Alejandro Amenábar’s first all-Spanish film since his Oscar-winning 'The Sea Inside,' explores a fascinating footnote to the Spanish Civil War against the wider backdrop of Franco’s rise to power.

By Jonathan Holland

Jonathan Holland

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Aside from delivering terrific work in a range of genres, Alejandro Amenábar — best known for the Nicole Kidman starrer The Others — has often sought to deliver on-message food for thought. The Sea Inside ’s moving reflections on assisted suicide won him the 2005 foreign-language film Oscar, while the feminist-philosophy mashup of Agora (2009) divided viewers.

Now comes While at War , a classically put-together study of the Spanish philosopher and writer Miguel de Unamuno that doubles as an up-to-date warning against the dangers of political passivity. Ambitious in scope, carefully crafted and featuring several fine performances, the film’s depiction of a frail old man realizing that a world changing for the worse is rapidly leaving him behind could have delivered the emotional punch of The Sea Inside . But despite the worthy seriousness of its intentions and the parallels with the present it cleverly draws at every turn, the final impression is of dramatic opportunities left unexplored. While War ’s dutiful sense of responsibility to its source material is laudable, it feels limiting.

At home, the film’s balanced view of left- and right-wing — unusual in Spanish films — will raise debate as well as the standard (and falsely grounded) complaints that this is one more Civil War movie we don’t need. Internationally, auds may respond to the fact that this very Spanish tale is one Civil War movie that we do, in fact need, right now — one that warns us that tyrants who are initially a bit of a joke often end up quickly wiping the smiles off people’s faces, and how compassion and dialogue are fragile virtues that should not be taken for granted.

These are the lessons painfully learned by the film’s aging central figure. In 1936, soon after the start of the Spanish Civil War, the ailing Unamuno (Karra Elejalde) made a legendary speech at the University of Salamanca, warning the Francoist Nationalist forces in the audience that they could “vencer, pero no convencer” (“win, but not convince”). Chaos and public humiliation for Unamuno were the result.

War opens with the fluttering flag of Spain’s Second Republic, whose decline the film will go on to chart. A beautifully staged first scene set in July 1936 shows Nationalist troops moving into the square of the cathedral city of Salamanca to declare a state of war before arresting the city’s mayor for the crime of being Republican.

The viewer knows that he will die, but many at the time could not believe in such a possibility. Awakened from slumber by the sounds of gunfire, one of them is the elderly Unamuno, the former rector of Salamanca University and thus one of Spain’s leading intellectuals. Unamuno dons his trademark beret and heads out to meet up with Protestant priest Atilano (Luis Zahera) and his young Marxist protege Salvador (Carlos Serrano-Clark). Salvador, along with Unamuno’s daughter Felisa (Inma Cuevas), is adamant that fascism is on its way, but Unamuno is skeptical.

Meanwhile, trouble is brewing over in Morocco, where Francisco Franco (Santi Prego) is preparing, aided by the Germans, to fly to Spain to support the coup. This second, somewhat livelier strand of the film essentially deals with the establishment of Franco as the Nationalist leader, accompanied by his faithful follower, Millán de Astray (Eduard Fernandez), the populist, one-armed, one-eyed character who founded the Spanish Foreign Legion, who revels in his nickname of “the Mutilated” and who invites Fernandez to spiritedly chew up the scenery on his every appearance. (It was Millán de Astray, both in life and in the film, who shouted “Death to intellectuals!” during Unamuno’s final speech.)

Franco, whose portrayal in Spanish films has tended toward caricature, is a challenge for an actor, since by all accounts the dictator who ended up ruling over Spain for nearly 40 years was a dull little man with a high voice. Prego skillfully and compellingly twists this dullness into creepiness, peppering the role with half-smiles and silences that last a beat too long, all the while suggesting that behind the facade there is desperate ambition. Historically, there is the suggestion that Franco may have been behind the plane crashes that coincidentally killed two of his rivals as Nationalist leader, and this is dealt with here merely via a furtive, across-the-table glance between Franco and his politician brother: To this extent, While at War holds up to historical scrutiny.

All of this complex history is smoothly foreshortened by the script, though as ever in military dramas a few too many of the chaps in uniform are simply anonymous, while much of the background — including, crucially, Unamuno’s own history — goes largely unexplored, thus robbing the character of depth. While at War ’s problems are thus more with the strand that deals with its hero.

If foreign audiences are familiar with Elejalde at all, it’s for his role in the massive comedy hit Spanish Affair . Here, buried under makeup, he is wonderfully credible as the irascible, sentimental old genius fighting bravely not to be dragged in on the side of the Nationalists.

But the script never ekes out the full force of the drama playing out inside the old philosopher, who is driven by a combination of intellectual arrogance and romantic innocence. With practically everyone telling him that times have changed and accusing him of complicity in the Nationalist cause, and with his friends being dragged off to be executed, Unamuno still refuses to believe the evidence confronting him; despite Elejalde’s best efforts, his stubbornness veers into dithering stupidity, making him a remote and frustrating figure.

The man who wrote Tragic Sense of Life thus lacks the sense of tragic grandeur the character is crying out for, while unfortunately and clumsily, Unamuno’s past is represented by repeated, short, quasi soap-opera sequences of him lying on a mountain as a young man sleeping with his now-dead wife, at one point accompanied by too-syrupy strings. (Amenábar himself composed the orchestral score, which is generally more effective than this.)

The women in the film are secondary characters but are quick to spot the truth of what’s going on, and are morally more even-handed than all the power-hungry males. Even Carmen Franco, the dictator’s wife, is carefully shaded, and if While at War has one point to make, it’s that the division between good and evil is rarely so neat as many would insist on believing.

Salamanca is a beautiful city to have as a backdrop, and Alex Catalan’s photography recognizes that without ever making things purely scenic. One beautifully composed scene has Unamuno and Salvador furiously arguing in silhouette as the sun goes down behind them, the point being that as long as people are still listening to one another despite their differences, there’s still hope. But soon, both the speakers are gone — two months after making his speech, which is the film’s wonderfully staged climax, Unamuno was dead.

The editing is not without subtlety, one scene, for example, featuring opera that segues into another with the crude hymn of the Spanish Foreign Legion. And though it offers too little in the way of dramatic light and shade, this is a cannily structured script. As Millán Astray’s convoy of legionnaires disappears into the distance, the camera lingers quietly on an anonymous, forgotten dead body in a ditch. In the years following the end of While at War , this will be the fate of not only Castro, Atilano and others in the film, but of hundreds of thousands more.

Production companies: Movistar +, Mod Producciones, Himenóptero, K&S Films Cast: Karra Elejalde, Eduard Fernández, Santi Prego, Luis Bermejo, Tito Valverde, Patricia López, Inma Cuevas, Carlos Serrano-Clark, Luis Zahera Director: Alejandro Amenábar Screenwriters: Alejandro Amenábar, Alejandro Hernández Producers: Fernando Bovaira, Domingo Corral, Hugo Sigman, Alejandro Amenábar Executive producers: Guillermo Vidal-Folch, Gabriel Arias-Salgado, Simón de Santiago Director of photography: Alex Catalan Production designer: Juan Pedro de Gaspar Costume designer: Sonia Grande Editor: Carolina Martínez Urbina Composer: Alejandro Amenábar Casting directors: Eva Leira, Yolanda Serrano Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Special Presentation) Sales: Film Factory

107 minutes

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Film Review: ‘While at War’

Alejandro Amenábar dramatizes the beginning of the Franco regime in this handsomely mounted but somewhat dramatically muffled Spanish history lesson.

By Dennis Harvey

Dennis Harvey

Film Critic

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Alejandro Amenábar went 15 years without making a feature in Spain, and his first such since the excellent “The Sea Inside” is notable not only for being a 20th-century Spanish history lesson, but also for providing a particularly timely anti-fascist message. “While at War” is a handsomely mounted drama about the start of the Franco regime, and how it came to seal Spain’s future — rather like a tomb — for nearly 40 years.

Climaxing in a famous speech of protest from literary lion Miguel de Unamuno, this is a worthy enterprise that errs on the side of caution, carrying the slightly stale whiff of awards-bait cinema in which greatness is frequently signaled but inspiration somehow lacking. Though surely due a certain amount of international travel, it’s unlikely to stir the kind of critical or viewer excitement needed to make this political back-chapter enticing to audiences outside Spanish-speaking territories.

To an extent, Amenábar and co-writer Alejandro Hernandez are hemmed in by the perspective of their protagonist (played by Karra Elejalde), an esteemed author and philosopher then considered by some “Spain’s greatest writer” — including the Nationalist leadership who deemed him patriotic and non-controversial enough to bestow that title upon. (When the story begins here, Unamuno is as yet unaware that their forces have most likely assassinated his now better-remembered colleague, Federico García Lorca.) A former sometime socialist, he had clashed with the powers-that-be before, even getting forced into exile for a while in the 1920s. But at this 1936 juncture, he appeared sympathetic enough to the military junta that has just seized control, at least insofar as he hesitated to criticize it openly.

That reluctance frustrates his best friends in Salamanca, younger fellow professor Salvator (Carlos Serrano-Clark) and Protestant pastor Atilano (Luis Zahera). They think he should use his prestige as the local university’s dean and a celebrated intellectual to decry the violence and oppression erupting all around them. But Unamuno here is frail, tired and nearly as wary of the Republican left as he is of the militarized right. Even when these friends are themselves arrested for little or no reason, he hopes somehow reason will prevail.

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But there is little reasoning with the uneducated fascist thugs running amok in uniform, or indeed with their illustrious leaders. Unamuno finally realizes that when he demands an audience with General (not yet Generalissimo) Franco, portrayed here by Santi Prego as a seemingly passive, even timid military careerist who’s himself terribly afraid of making “the wrong move.” Yet somehow it is he who gets pushed forward by the other generals — particularly vain, blustering, possibly psychotic Millan-Astray (Eduard Fernández) — to become the absolute chief of what had been initially intended as a collectively led government.

“While at War” is named after a clause that would have reined in Franco’s power considerably, but was removed from his regime charter. Another high official warns that if this “little fox” is put in control, “he won’t let go until he dies” — which is exactly what happened, leaving Spain an isolated dictatorship until 1975. When the ailing Unamuno pleads for his friends’ freedom, he realizes from Franco’s bland, soulless response that they’re already doomed — as is any hope of a Spain that might win freedom from civil war.

While smoothly handled, Amenabar’s film is somewhat awkwardly caught between two elements. On one hand, it’s an intimate, fond lion-in-winter seriocomedy, in which a great man gone slightly crusty tries to slink towards eternity without too much fussing from his bothersome friends and family. On the other, it’s a fairly large-scale, elaborate portrait of a catastrophic historical moment when Spain succumbed to the siren song of fascism (with visiting officials from Nazi Germany as a pressuring chorus).

With its overall structure and individual scenes a little too neatly turned to hit those contrasting notes, “While at War” ends up feeling rather pat in one aspect and one-dimensional in another. It’s insufficiently moving as character-driven piece, but also lacks the urgency and suspense needed to make larger events vivid. You can feel Amenábar and his collaborators trying to jury-rig a balance in one over-calculated sequence after another. We can always see exactly what they’re going for, and the practiced skill behind it, but the emotional impact is seldom there.

Nonetheless, this is more a moderate disappointment than a misfire, being so accomplished in all departments that the whole flows seamlessly, at least on the surface — even as we glimpse those seams underneath. All tech and design contributions are first-rate, bringing to convincing life an attractive world of yesteryear, albeit one whose immediate fate ought to trouble us more than it does here.

Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 5, 2019. (Also in San Sebastian Film Festival.) Running time: 107 MIN. (Original title: “Mientras Dure la Guerra”)

Production: (Spain-Argentina) A Movistar Plus, Mod Producciones, Himenoptero, K&S Films, MDLG a.i.e. production. (Int'l sales: Film Factory, Barcelona.) Producers: Fernando Bovaira, Domingo Corral, Hugo Sigman, Alejandro Amenábar. Executive producers: Guillem Vidal-Folch, Gabriel Arias-Salgado, Simon De Santiago.
Crew: Director: Alejandro Amenábar. Screenplay: Amenábar, Alejandro Hernandez. Camera (color, widescreen, HD): Alex Catalan. Editor: Carolina Martinez Urbina. Music: Amenábar.
With: Karra Elejalde, Eduard Fernández, Santi Prego, Luis Bermejo, Toto Valverde, Patricia Lopez Arnalz , Inma Cuevas, Carlos Serrano-Clark, Luis Zahera, Ainhoa Santamaria, Mirela Rey, Luis Callejo, Dafnis Balduz, Jorge Andreu, Nathalie Poza.

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Opinion: ‘Civil War’ Is a Bad Movie, and Worse at Predicting America’s Future

Civil War Plays Like a Nightmare. You Should Still See It.

A24’s most expensive movie to date is borderline incoherent. that doesn’t mean it’s not important..

The year is unspecified—it could be a few years into some alternate future, or it could be right now. The president, a clean-cut establishment type played by Nick Offerman, is unnamed, his party and political affiliations unclear (though his rhetoric in an address to the nation sounds disturbingly authoritarian). And the precise nature of the domestic conflict that has torn the United States apart and turned the nation’s major cities into zones of open warfare is unexplained. In Civil War , the provocative fourth feature from Alex Garland ( Ex Machina , Annihilation , Men ), the details about why and how America collapsed into violent chaos are immaterial. What Garland wants is to drop us into the middle of that violent chaos as it unfolds, to make us see our familiar surroundings—ordinary blocks lined with chain drugstores and clothing boutiques—recast as active battlegrounds, with snipers on rooftops and local militias enforcing their own sadistic versions of the law.

One thing Garland’s at times frustratingly opaque script does go out of its way to clarify is that the ideological fissures in this alternate version of America occur along different fault lines than the ones that remain from the country’s actual civil war. The main threat to what we’ll call the Offerman administration is the secessionist group the Western Forces, a Texas-California alliance that’s intentionally impossible to extrapolate from our current red state–blue state split. There is also a separate rebel movement of some kind based in Florida, but above all, there is unchecked street violence and general social disorder. One early exchange of dialogue suggests that the war has been going on for some 14 months, which seems like too short a time for the country to have fallen into the advanced state of dystopia in which we find it: highways choked with empty cars, most of the population in hiding, the internet all but nonfunctional except in a few urban centers. But again, the point is less plausibility than viscerality. Garland got his start writing a zombie movie, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later , and he has also co-written an award-winning action video game. Civil War , A24’s most expensive movie to date, sometimes plays like a mashup of those two genres, with the viewer as first-person player and our armed fellow citizens as the zombies.

As the film begins, Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), a veteran war photographer, is in New York City, holed up at a hotel that doubles as a makeshift command center for the press. Knowing that the Western Forces are on the verge of taking the capital, Lee and her longtime professional partner, a wire-service reporter named Joel (Wagner Moura), are planning a perilous road trip from New York to D.C. in the unlikely hope of landing an interview with the embattled president. Lee’s longtime mentor, news editor Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), warns them that the plan is sheer madness—then asks if, despite his age and limited mobility, he can get in on the action.

As they’re preparing to leave, they’re joined, despite Lee’s protests, by Jessie ( Priscilla ’s Cailee Spaeny), an aspiring photojournalist in her early 20s who idolizes Lee’s work but has no experience in war zones. Bringing along the stowaway Lee disparages as a “kindergartner” will only, she argues, put all of them in even more danger. These doubts turn out to be justified: The presence of Jessie, a live wire with a penchant for unnecessary risk-taking, makes the journey to D.C. even more perilous, while forcing Lee to confront how jaded she’s become after years of compartmentalizing her most scarring memories. On the way to the capital, this multigenerational foursome encounters gas-station vigilantes, a shootout at an abandoned Christmas-themed amusement park, and a gut-churning encounter with a racist militant played by Dunst’s real-life husband, Jesse Plemons.

In its vision of journalism as a form of amoral adventure-seeking, Civil War belongs to a long tradition of films about hardened war correspondents in far-flung places, movies like A Private War and The Year of Living Dangerously . But the fact that the carnage these reporters are documenting is homegrown shifts the inflection significantly. Suddenly it’s impossible to exoticize or otherwise alienate ourselves from the bloodshed onscreen, which makes us ask ourselves what we were doing exoticizing it in the first place. This effect of moral immediacy is Civil War ’s greatest strength, and the reason it feels like an important movie of its moment even if it isn’t a wholly coherent or consistently insightful one.

Garland’s idea of throwing us in medias res during a civil war in progress is a bold gambit, and his cinematic instincts—his sense of where to put a camera and how long to draw out a moment of suspense—are often keen. The horrible realities he makes us look at—intra-civilian combat, physical and psychological torture, the everyday depths of human depravity—are summoned powerfully enough that Civil War remains emotionally and physically affecting even as the ideas it seeks to explore remain fuzzy. Is this a critique of contemporary journalism or a salute to the courage of reporters on the front lines? If it’s meant to be suspended somewhere in between, how does the filmmaker position himself on that line, and how should we, the audience, feel about the protagonists’ sometimes dubious choices?

Even as they document street battles and point-blank executions, adrenaline junkies Jessie and Joel occasionally exchange devilish grins. Meanwhile, Lee is all but incapable of normal human relationships because of her unacknowledged PTSD. A late sequence finds them unofficially embedded with an especially ruthless death squad; it would seem important to establish whether this alignment is meant to signify their ultimate journalistic corruption or a necessary compromise for the survival of the Fourth Estate. Even on the level of plot logic, the movie poses a question that the script’s curiously thin worldbuilding never answers: If the internet and most of the nation’s industrial infrastructure are in ruins, how are ordinary people reading Joel’s articles and looking at the photos that Lee herself struggles for hours to upload? If it is intended in part as a satire of journalistic opportunism, Civil War should be more specific about the conditions of 21 st -century media in wartime, especially given that it’s coming out at a moment when front-line reporters face more physical danger than at any time in recent memory.

All we learn of Lee’s background is that, like Jessie, she is from a farm town in the interior of the U.S., with parents who are in stubborn denial about the crumbling of the republic. But because Kirsten Dunst is a remarkable artist, she makes this somewhat underwritten character, who on paper could have been a stoic “badass” stereotype, into a complex and indelible presence. Dunst also, perhaps for the first time, loses the girlish quality she has brought even to middle-aged characters: Lee Smith is a plain, scowling woman with a glum, even abrasive mien. She’s a person whose perspective on life has narrowed down to the size of a camera lens, yet she’s also a committed journalist and a fiercely loyal colleague. As the other three sort-of protagonists, Moura, Henderson, and Spaeny all turn in finely tuned performances that bring a depth to their characters beyond what the script provides, but it’s Dunst whose thousand-yard stare and deep-buried grief will stay with me.

“What kind of American are you?” Plemons’ fatigues-and-pink-sunglasses-clad character asks the journalists one by one as he terrorizes them at gunpoint in the movie’s scariest and most successful sequence. (Not for nothing, it’s also the moment that suggests the most strongly that the vaguely defined conflict in this fictive America has everything to do with race.) That may be the screenplay’s smartest single line, in that it dispenses with the metaphorical quality of Civil War ’s imagined political dystopia and presents us with the real question many Americans are asking each other and themselves right now, sometimes in a self-reflective mode, sometimes in a contentious or overtly threatening one. As the unfolding of that encounter with Plemons makes clear, as soon as the question is asked with a weapon in your hand, it becomes a trick question, posed not to start a conversation but to set a trap. Civil War often leaves the audience feeling trapped in an all-too-realistic waking nightmare, but when it finally lets us go, mercifully short of the two-hour mark, it sends us out of the theater talking.

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Eye For Film >> Movies >> While At War (2019) Film Review

While at war.

Reviewed by: Amber Wilkinson

Alejandro Amenábar takes a stately approach to General Franco's rise to power in Spain in his latest, which also explores, through the experiences and actions of celebrated Spanish writer Miguel da Unamuno, how easily complacency or ambivalence can be turned into complicity - an idea that, sadly, never seems to lose its political resonance.

While those in Spain may find the story all too familiar, concentration is required for those not well-versed with the ins and outs of Spanish politics, at least initially, as Amenábar gets his twin-track story up and running swiftly.

It is 1936 and the Spanish Civil War is in its infancy. We quickly learn that Unamuno - the dean of Salamanca University - has vacillated between sides in terms of his writings, although he would say it is other people, rather than his philosophy that has shifted. Now elderly - and played thoughtfully and soulfully by Karra Elejalde - Unamuno enjoys a small intellectual bubble with friends, a priest Atilano (Luis Zahera) and Salvador (Carlos Serrano-Clark), a young and feisty Marxist, but is dismissive of their fears of the rise of fascism.

Meanwhile, in Morocco, in scenes threaded through with inky humour that recalls The Death Of Stalin we see Franco carefully and almost imperceptibly manoeuvering his way to the top with the help of the bombastic Millan-Astray (Eduard Fernandez, stealing every scene he is glimpsed in by grabbing it by the scruff of the neck). The latter, with one arm and one eye lost in battle is heralded by all as "the glorious cripple".

Interestingly, this is one of (at least) two films at San Sebastian Film Festival this year - along with The Endless Trench - to address the apparent weediness of Franco, who looks for all the world like a sort of Poundshop Hitler and has an incongruously high voice. Here actor Santi Prego shows, perhaps, how Franco used his apparently non-threatening, quiet attitude as a means of manipulating his way to the top. The consummate Machiavel, religion and flags are weapons in an armory that seeks to serve a citizenry of one - himself.

There is strong craftsmanship in all departments, from the period design to the score, also written by Amenábar, to the supporting roles. The portrayal of Franco's wife religiously devout wife Carmen (Mireia Rey), in particular, has weight, as it probes at the way that, rather than practising what they preach, peole are often more prepared to perform mental gymanstics to explain how their ideology - however abhorent - is somehow justified by their beliefs.

Unfortunately, despite his initially economical approach to the two elements of the plot, which sees Franco's gradual gathering of power mirrored by Unamuno's slow realisation that his arrogance has blinded to the destruction and taking of lives that is going on around him, the director can't resist pushing things into sentimental territory. The deeper into the film we get, and the closer the realities of the war become to Unamuno, the more Amenábar and his co-writer Alejandro Hernández lean into the melodrama - epitomised by a repeated slushy flashback scene of Unamuno being cradled as a young man by his now-dead wife. This straining for emotion undermines some of the earlier poise and delicate balance struck by the film, although a climatic speech scene at the university still packs considerable punch.

Director: Alejandro Amenábar

Writer: Alejandro Amenábar, Alejandro Hernández

Starring: Karra Elejalde, Eduard Fernández, Santi Prego, Luis Bermejo, Tito Valverde, Nathalie Poza, Patricia López Arnaiz, Inma Cuevas, Carlos Serrano-Clark, Luis Zahera, Luis Callejo, Mireia Rey, Ainhoa Santamaría, Itziar Aizpuru, Miquel García Borda

Runtime: 107 minutes

Country: Spain, Argentina

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Review: ‘Civil War’ shows an America long past unraveling, which makes it necessary

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The sharp crack of a snare drum, shuffling along at an insistent martial clip, is what first kicks “Civil War” into gear. The beat is joined by some menacing electronic bloops and nervous muttering, and while you may assume this is the work of some promising young bedroom producer, it’s actually a 1968 track, “Lovefingers,” by the radical duo Silver Apples.

Somehow, the music matches the nervous, revolutionary energy on screen: the unlikely sight of an angry Brooklyn patrolled by troops, hundreds of people clashing in the streets, a suicide bomber putting an abrupt punctuation to it all. “Civil War” will remind you of the great combat films, the nauseating artillery ping of “Saving Private Ryan,” the surreal up-is-down journey of “Apocalypse Now.” It also bears a pronounced connection to the 2002 zombie road movie scripted by its writer-director Alex Garland, “28 Days Later,” a production that straddled the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and arrived in theaters scarred by timeliness.

It’s the nowness of “Civil War” that will be much discussed. The movie takes place in an America that’s been amplified from its current state of near-insurrection, but only slightly, a distance that feels troublingly small. An autocratic third-term president ( Nick Offerman ) practices a pompous speech in front of a teleprompter. California and Texas have seceded, becoming unlikely allies in a campaign to retake the capital. The suburban landscape is strewn with bombed-out malls, vicious intolerance and, most spookily of all, an occasional town in which everything seems normal, where a blasé salesclerk can be aware of the country falling apart one state over but still put up a personal wall. “We just try to stay out,” she says.

To the British-born Garland, a maker of thematically rich sci-fi films that play more like broken mirrors ( “Ex Machina,” “Annihilation” ), apathy is the real enemy. “Civil War” shudders with doleful fury. It’s not a “fun” fascist dystopia like John Carpenter ’s immortal “Escape from New York” or the Garland-scripted 2012 “Dredd,” but one in which we’re meant to feel the irrevocable loss of something bigger with each frame.

A young photojournalist watches in a crowd.

Accordingly, Garland makes his heroes a pair of photojournalists, one hard-nosed, the other, a budding junkie. As played by an unusually grave and commanding Kirsten Dunst, Lee knows from many a rubble-strewn hot spot and seems long past the irony of discovering one at home. Jessie (Cailee Spaeny, emerging from the soft passivity of “Priscilla” ) only wants some action. If colleges still existed, she’d be graduating from one. Instead, she hopes to sneak into the school of Lee’s fearlessness. The elder newshound looks at this unwanted disciple with weary eyes that recognize a shared curse. “That’s a great photo,” she tells Jessie, sadly.

They, along with Lee’s writer colleague Joel (the fine Brazilian actor Wagner Moura ) and a veteran journalist, Sammy ( Stephen McKinley Henderson ), who works for a much-diminished, perhaps criminalized New York Times, are making a run from New York City to Washington, D.C., where they hope to interview the president, bunkered in the White House and on the brink of surrender. “It’s the only story left,” insists Joel, even as we hear that press members have a tendency to get shot on the South Lawn.

“Civil War” then becomes a thrillingly dark road trip, studded by moments of explosive tension and dangerous misjudgment that play less like bite-size episodes of “The Last of Us” than signposts of an overall political condition. (If you love post-apocalyptic journeys, buckle up — the tank’s full.) Some of Garland’s imagery is overly familiar, like the line of abandoned cars that stretches to the horizon. He also leans hard on some overaesthetized slo-mo pageantry that, combined with the occasional indie-guitar strums on the soundtrack, threaten to turn his concept into a Statement.

But the scenes that work will get you thinking. Garland is strongest with impressions: chirping birds over bloody lawns, the laconic humor of exhausted soldiers on a stakeout, a quick shot of Lee deleting some of her own photos, a private mode of self-care. In one scene, a frighteningly calm xenophobe with a rifle (Jesse Plemons) menaces from behind red-tinted lenses.“What kind of American are you?” he asks, finger on the trigger, the movie sharpening into something unbearable.

Two women in dresses pose for the camera.

Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny on the nightmarish ‘Civil War’: ‘No nation is immune’

Writer-director Alex Garland’s controversy-courting political fable about a violently divided America brings together two generation-defining actors.

April 4, 2024

For some, those glasses will be bait enough, a MAGA hat to coastal bulls. But for the most part, what Garland is after is less accusatory and more provocative, detached from the kind of red-state-blue-state binary that would trap “Civil War” in amber before it had a chance to breathe. Do we deserve a democracy if we can barely speak to each other? This is a film set in a future when words no longer matter. Even the final words of power-grabbing leaders disappoint.

At some point, the hugeness of modern-day military hardware, much of it digitally rendered, sweeps in, the pounding rotors of helicopters and urban street-clearing machinery orchestrated into an overwhelming last act. The shock of watching tanks roll down Pennsylvania Avenue is a disquieting vision best experienced in a multiplex, not real life. But the takeaway isn’t exhilaration; the unease is what makes Garland’s film valuable. You watch it with your jaw hanging open.

What of our heroic journalists? Dunst and Spaeny continue a long-telegraphed transfer of status, both actors digging for expressions beyond stunned, but this isn’t a chatty film. Its main purpose is to turn us into observers ourselves. And regardless of what may come ahead — at the movies and beyond — there won’t be a more important film this year.

'Civil War'

Rating: R, for strong violent content, bloody/disturbing images, and language throughout Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes Playing: In wide release Friday, April 12

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Kirsten Dunst, left, and Cailee Spaeny in 'Civil War'

What ‘Civil War’ gets right and wrong about photojournalism, according to a Pulitzer Prize winner

April 16, 2024

In trying to hedge its politics, ‘Civil War’ betrays its characters — and the audience

April 15, 2024

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Joshua Rothkopf is film editor of the Los Angeles Times. He most recently served as senior movies editor at Entertainment Weekly. Before then, Rothkopf spent 16 years at Time Out New York, where he was film editor and senior film critic. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Sight and Sound, Empire, Rolling Stone and In These Times, where he was chief film critic from 1999 to 2003.

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‘While At War’: Toronto Review

By Fionnuala Halligan, Chief Film Critic 2019-09-05T18:02:00+01:00

Alejandro Amenabar takes a look at Franco’s Spain through the experiences of celebrated writer Miguel de Unamuno

Source: Toronto International Film Festival

‘While at War’

Dir. Alejandro Amenabar. Spain. 2019. 107 mins.

Alejandro Amenabar steps back to look Generalissimo Francisco Franco squarely in the eye in While At War, a rare Spanish film to confront the caudillo’s rise to power face-on. This exquisitely-detailed period piece attempts to take a snapshot of Spain at a terrifyingly complicated time, and angles its lens on Franco through the story of the great Spanish man of letters, Miguel de Unamuno, dean of the University of Salamanca as Amenabar’s film opens in July 1936 with the start of the Spanish Civil War.

While At War is a salutary lesson delivered in a sober, respectful manner to a country which is still coming to grips with the events it relates

While At War is a complex, steady, deeply intelligent film with a chilling resonance today, and a significant departure in tone from Amenabar’s prior work (which includes The Sea Inside, The Others , and 2015’s R egression ). Careful and composed, it never stoops to simplification and, as such, will be a demanding watch for audiences outside the Iberian peninsula. There, it should be essential viewing after a Toronto bow and a domestic premiere in San Sebastian. As Spain – and Europe – deals with a renaissance of the same opportunistic neo-right-wing spectres, it’s appropriate that Amenabar paints in this painful story patiently. As he explains in a script he co-wrote, complex circumstances give rise to dictators and “draining the swamp” only allows for the emergence of monsters from the deep.

Presented here as a fascist of convenience and religious only when it suited him, Franco cast a long shadow over Spain, way past his death in 1975, and over the fractured Pacto de Olvido, or agreement to forget, that enabled the country to move forward afterwards. This film is a tough nut to crack for those without a basic grasp of the causes of the country’s Civil War, but the dark menace of Amenabar’s story seeps in, much like other films to deal with that time – from Crias Cuevas to La Colmena (or, on a more fantastical level, The Orphanage or Pan’s Labyrinth ).

Most troubling is how Amenabar presents the story of the outspoken, iconoclastic academic Unamuno (played with conviction by Karra Elejalde) as being so convinced of his own righteousness at the outset and the country itself as being so polarised. These circumstances are clearly being repeated today. The Republic, which Unamuno had initially supported but latterly fell foul of, has collapsed. When a military Junta appears to restore “law and order” to the nation, their case initially seems reasonable to the renowned and arrogant writer. He supports the uprising against the advice of his friends and family.

Be careful of what you wish for. Down in the Spanish protectorates of Ceuta and Melia in Morocco, German forces are preparing for a trial run of World War II and Franco, only one of a band of generals at that time, is using the conflict to scheme his way to the top with the help of Millan Astray (a magnetic performance from Eduard Fernandez). From such a confluence of circumstances, one ambitious man can rise to ensure the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Spaniards and a 40-year lock on the country. It’s a chilling story, as Unamuno discovers when his friends start to disappear.

Previous films have tended to circle Franco, crab-like, but While At War gives him a voice. Franco-ism, it says, had everything to do with Franco and not much to do with religion, Spain, or the rights of its citizens. Spain’s mighty empire is a thing of the past, and Franco capitalises on the loss of national pride to promote himself. He only decided to relieve the Siege of Alzazar when it became clear how it may personally play out, for example. Santi Prego gives an creepily compelling, mostly internalised performance of a man whose personal ambition would set a country on fire. Mireia Rey plays his wife, Carmen, who had a part to play in Unamuno’s fate.

Design – on all levels – is exquisite. Fascists are easily identified by their love of preening uniforms, and Amenabar shows us prancing military peacocks in their red sashes and swirling, fur-lined capes, sitting in wood-panelled libraries plotting their rise – or in hatching plots in the tents of Spanish Morocco, where they are assisted by swaggering Nazis. Guernica was mere months away from the time this film is set. Unamuno’s home of Salamanca, meanwhile, is dominated by its University. Established in 1134 and the oldest in the Spanish speaking world, it means more than bricks and mortar, and the words of its dean carry great weight, be they mistaken or not.

Scored with dignity by Amenabar itself, While At War is a salutary lesson delivered in a sober, respectful manner to a country which is still coming to grips with the events it relates. Watching is a timely reminder of how smoothly evil can slither in to nest while the forces which might counter it are preoccupied elsewhere.

Production companies: Movistar +, MOD Producciones, Himenoptero, K&S Films, MDLG AIE

International sales: The Film Factory

Producer: Fernado Bovaira, Hugo Sigman, Domingo Corral, Alejandro Amenabar

Screenplay: Alejandro Amenabar, Alejandro Hernandez

Cinematography: Alex Catalan

Production design: Juan Pedro de Gaspar

Editing Carolina Martinez Urbina:

Music: Alejandro Amenabar

Main cast: Karra Elejalde, Eduard Fernandez, Santi Prego, Mireia Rey, Nathalie Poza

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'Civil War' review: Kirsten Dunst leads visceral look at consequences of a divided America

We see “Civil War” trending on social media all too commonly in our divided country, for one reason or another, and usually nodding to extreme cultural or ideological differences. With his riveting new action thriller of the same name, writer/director Alex Garland delivers a riveting cautionary tale that forces viewers to confront its terrifying real-life consequences.

“Civil War” (★★★½ out of four; rated R; in theaters Friday) imagines a near-future America that’s dystopian in vision but still realistic enough to be eerily unnerving. It's a grounded, well-acted ode to the power of journalism and a thought-provoking, visceral fireball of an anti-war movie.

Played exceptionally by Kirsten Dunst , Lee is an acclaimed war photographer covering a fractured America: The Western Forces led by California and Texas have seceded from the USA and are days away from a final siege on the federal government. Lee and her reporting partner Joel (Wagner Moura) have been tasked with traveling from New York City to Washington to interview the president (Nick Offerman) before the White House falls.

After visually capturing humanity's worst moments, Lee is as world-weary and jaded as one can be. But after saving aspiring photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) during a Brooklyn suicide bombing, Lee becomes a reluctant mentor as the young woman worms her way into their crew. Also in the press van: senior journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), hitching a ride to the Western Forces military base in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Most of “Civil War” is an episodic odyssey where Lee and company view the mighty toll taken by this conflict: the graveyard of cars on what’s left of I-95, for example, or how an innocent-looking holiday stop turns deadly courtesy of an unseen shooter. Primarily, however, it’s a disturbing internal examination of what happens when we turn on each other, when weekend warriors take up arms against trained soldiers, or armed neighbors are given a way to do bad things to people they just don’t like.

'No dark dialogue!': Kirsten Dunst says 5-year-old son helped her run lines for 'Civil War'

Given its polarizing nature, “Civil War" is actually not that "political." Garland doesn’t explain what led to the secession or much of the historical backstory, and even Offerman’s president isn’t onscreen enough to dig into any real-life inspirations, outside of some faux bluster in the face of certain defeat. (He’s apparently in his third term and dismantled the FBI, so probably not a big Constitutionalist.)

Rather than two hours of pointing fingers, Garland is more interested in depicting the effect of a civil war rather than the cause. As one sniper points out in a moment when Lee and Joel are trying not to die, when someone’s shooting a gun at you, it doesn’t matter what side you’re on or who’s good and who's bad.

The director’s intellectual filmography has explored everything from ecological issues ( “Annihilation” ) to AI advancement ( “Ex Machina” ), and there are all sorts of heady themes at play in “Civil War.” “What kind of American are you?” asks a racist soldier played with a steady, ruthless cruelty by Jesse Plemons (Dunst's husband) in a disturbing scene that nods to an even deeper conflict in society than the one torching this fictionalized version. There's also an underlying sense of apathy that the characters face, with hints that much of the country is just willfully ignoring the conflict because they'd rather not think about it. But this hellish road trip also maintains a sense of hopefulness − via the growing relationship between Lee and Jessie – and is pretty exciting even with its multitude of horrors.

'You get paid a lot of money': Kirsten Dunst says she's open for another superhero movie

“Civil War” is a thoughtful movie with blockbuster ambitions, and while it does embrace more of a straightforward action flick vibe toward its climactic end, Garland still lands a lasting gut punch. He immerses audiences in the unpredictable nature of war, with gunfire and explosions leaving even the calmest sort on edge, and paints a sprawling canvas of an America forever changed. Thankfully, it’s just a warning and not a promise, using the movie theater as a public service announcement rather than an escape from the real world.

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Is this fictitious civil war closer to reality than we think?

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(L-R) Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny Murray Close/A24 hide caption

(L-R) Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny

1. A civil war for the silver screen

Civil War, the new A24 film from British director Alex Garland, imagines a scenario that might not seem so far-fetched to some; a contemporary civil war breaking out in the United States.

In this world, the U.S. has split into various factions. The president, played by Nick Offerman – has given himself a third term, and he's hoping to fend off an assault from one of the more powerful groups.

In what might seem like the most unbelievable narrative twist, California and Texas form an alliance to become the "Western Forces" and fight against Offerman's regime. Sure, I guess!

Some independent candidates start their own political parties to ease ballot access

2. how far are we from reality.

NPR movie critic Bob Mondello says the movie doesn't do a lot of explaining to help us understand how the U.S. got to this moment. But he says that makes it stronger.

"What became much more interesting in the moment was what it looks like to transpose things that we've always associated with other countries – the bombed out helicopters and things like that – to place that in a J.C. Penney parking lot."

And while the film has taken heat for little mention of politics, the question of an actual civil war has everything to do with it.

Polling has shown a significant minority thinks a civil war is at least somewhat likely in the next 10 years. So what do the experts say?

Movie Reviews

'civil war' is a doomsday thought experiment — that could have used more thinking, 3. division in the u.s..

Amy Cooter is a director of research at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Her work has led her to the question that Garland's movie has put in the minds of both moviegoers and political pundits: Could a second civil war really happen here?

Cooter wants to make one thing clear: "I don't think that civil war is imminent, but I think there are some people who wish we would have one, and wish that they could be effectively culture soldiers to re-enact a civil order that they see as better for them and their families."

In her studies of militias and political extremists, Cooter has observed a movement of groups similar to those who joined in on the January 6th riots who feel disconnected from the current political moment, or perhaps want to return to a previous version of society, that they feel served them better.

And while Cooter doesn't think a civil war will be happening anytime soon, she does say this:

"I think we are at a moment of extreme political division that may get worse before it gets better."

This episode was produced by Marc Rivers. It was edited by Jeanette Woods, Jonaki Mehta and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

far-right extremism
political divide

‘While at War’ Review – An Historical Political Drama Worth Your Attention

While At War is a lyrical and symbolic meditation of the Spanish philosopher and writer Miguel de Unamuno that speaks directly to a modern audience, warning against the dangers of political apathy, fascism, and ambiguity.

In the summer of 1936, famed Spanish writer and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno publicly supports the military rebellion, believing it will bring order to chaos in Spain. He loses his job and influence in a left-wing university. Meanwhile, General Francisco Franco initiates a successful campaign from the South, secretly plotting to take over the country. As the war escalates, Unamuno must question his loyalties and reconsider his principles.

While at War is ambitious in scope and delivery, and the narrative is poignant. Unamuno is a frail, educated older man witnessing the world around him devolve into a strange new world. There’s a seriousness that hangs over this film, a warning paralleling our times, representing Spanish and global politics, that draws you in from the start. However, not all of the dramatic possibilities and concerns of the film are fully fleshed out, though that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s better to leave the audience wanting more.

Unusual for most political films in this ideologue world, While at War deals with actual political and historical events with a balanced approach towards the left and right wings and sheds light on the Spanish civil war. There’s an all too obvious warning in this film: beware of political leaders that start off being a bit of a joke and soon become tyrannical and lead their countries into disarray. This film also talks about how compassion and dialogue are fragile virtues that almost seem to be extinct in contemporary public life.

The audience painfully learns these lessons via the film’s protagonist, the aging philosopher, essayist, poet and playwright Miguel de Unamuno (whose actual life this film briefly charts). Soon after the start of the Spanish Civil War, Unamuno (Karra Elejalde) made a legendary speech at the University of Salamanca, warning the Francoist Nationalist forces in the audience that they could “Vencer, pero no convencer”, ie. “Win, but not convince”. Following that speech, Unamuno suffered great public humiliation.

The film opens with a boisterous and patriotic fluttering of the flag of Spain’s Second Republic. A beautiful and raw staged opening scene set in July 1936 shows Nationalist troops moving into the square of the cathedral city of Salamanca to declare a state of war before arresting the city’s mayor for the crime of being Republican. Awakened by the sounds of gunfire, the elderly Unamuno, the former rector of Salamanca University, dons his trademark beret and heads out to meet up with Protestant priest Atilano (Luis Zahera) and his young Marxist protege Salvador (Carlos Serrano-Clark). Along with Unamuno’s daughter Felisa (Inma Cuevas), Salvador is adamant that fascism is on its way, but Unamuno is sceptical.

In Morocco, more danger lurks. Francisco Franco (Santi Prego) is preparing his entrance into Spain to support the coup, aided by the Germans, and all hell breaks loose. This second narrative strand charts the establishment of Franco as the Nationalist leader, accompanied by his faithful and murderous disciple, Millán de Astray (Eduard Fernandez): the populist, one-armed, one-eyed character who founded the Spanish Foreign Legion, who revels in his nickname of “the Mutilated”.

In reality and in the film, it’s de Astray who shouts the famous line “Death to intellectuals” during Unamuno’s final speech. Fernandez relishes the character and chews up the scenery. He plays de Astray well and is in complete control, never allowing his portrayal to fall into farce. Much like Hitler, Francisco Franco is a complicated character to portray convincingly. And, like Hitler or Stalin, the portrayal of Franco in film tends to so often fall towards caricature. Tyrants are usually dull little men with shrill, high-pitched voices. Prego plays Franco in a nuanced and controlled way, commanding the character so that he’s able to twist the dullness into creepiness, making your skin crawl.

The movie also deals with many compelling historical facts, suggesting that Franco may have been behind the plane crash that coincidentally killed two of his rivals as Nationalist leader. However, this episode doesn’t receive much screen time, just a few furtive glances between Franco and his politician brother. To this extent, While at War holds up to historical scrutiny, which many Hollywood films about the same era cannot claim.

Like most historical military dramas, there are plenty of composite characters, unknown men in uniform, whose backgrounds are not fully fleshed out. Sadly, this too is true for Unamuno’s backstory. If you were not aware of who Unamuno was, it could seem a bit jarring as to why he is so vital and powerful. The script appears restrained; there are so many elements hovering around the characters that it seems strange not to take full advantage of them. The old philosopher is a compelling character, fuelled by intellectual arrogance, the romance of patriotism, and innocence.

Everyone around Unamuno keeps reminding him that times have changed. Many of his friends accuse him of complicity in the Nationalist cause. In contrast, while his friends are dragged off to be executed, Unamuno still refuses to believe the painfully clear evidence confronting him. Despite Elejalde’s performance, the character’s stubbornness falls into the dithering old-fool trope too quickly, which causes his character to be distant and wholeheartedly frustrating.

The women in the narrative are secondary characters but are more nuanced and more pragmatic to what’s going on around them. They’re nowhere near as power-mad as the men. This is where the film’s main point is made, especially with Carmen Franco (Mireia Rey), the dictator’s wife. There’s a moral ambiguity to her; the division between good and evil is seldom as simple as black and white.

The primary location for the film is the beautiful city of Salamanca. Alex Catalan’s photography makes the city come alive as its own character and not just the backdrop for the film. The light and the composition is naturalistic with a rich tone. There are several beautifully composed and lit shots. One of the highlights has to be the scene where Unamuno and Salvador are furiously arguing, their figures in silhouette with the sun retreating in the background. The not-so-subtle point being made is that as long as people are still listening to one another, maybe there’s still hope despite their differences. The scene is even more poignant when you consider that two months after this famous speech, Unamuno was dead.

Overall, While at War is entertaining and, from all reports, historically accurate, but is lacking in character development, really bringing the film down. Otherwise, this film could have been a masterpiece and a reminder of just how important dialogue and understanding is.

Fun Fact: An important part of the movie is set in the town of Salamanca, being the Main or Major Square (Plaza Mayor). It was actually shot in that very square, although the vegetation shown had to be added as in the moment of shooting, the square had none.

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Civil War — Movie Review

I f the concept of director Alex Garland’s Civil War is taken on a surface level, it is easy to say that releasing a film like it during an election year is provocative, to say the least. However, after watching the movie, it’s clear that Civil War operates as a warning, free of blame or politics. But while the heavy tones are evident throughout the film’s runtime, does it make for great cinema? The results are mixed.

Civil War is a technical tour de force. Every camera shot is meticulously crafted and purposeful, creating a feast for the eyes. Every gunshot, every military jet flyby, rattles the viewer. On a technical level, cinematography, sound design, general direction, Civil War sings. All of those elements easily put the audience in the unsettling headspace of our protagonists.

Those protagonists, Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, and Stephen McKinley Henderson, all portray their characters with a subtle nuance that augments the dread induced by Civil War’s subject matter. Dunst’s world-weariness, Moura’s wide-eyed embrace of the conflict’s violence, Spaeny’s innocence, and Henderson’s wisened veteran all help to create a world that audiences can feel. However, this may lead to the best and worst parts of the film.

Civil War is a dour, depressing drag of a film. Truly the feel-bad movie of the year so far, there is shockingly little levity here. This is a war film. The difference between Civil War and, let’s say, Saving Private Ryan or Dunkirk is that in those films, audiences could get behind a side. We knew — these were our heroes. These were the villains. That kind of backstory and development is not offered in this film.

Do not look for background or reason in Civil War. Indeed, this is not a “why” or “how” movie. The movie doesn’t explain sides, how we got to this point, the geographics of the war, or even which side stands for what. There’s not even a vague explanation of the timeline. It’s not clear how long the war has been going. We’re dropped into Civil War in progress, like cinematic paratroopers on the battlefront.

In Civil War, it seems the message is — there is no good side. Everyone is bad in their own way. It’s a commentary that, while thought-provoking, does not make for the most engaging cinema. Perhaps Mary Poppins was right, and a spoonful of sugar would have helped this medicine go down. However, what Civil War offers is a bitter pill, and although a technical marvel, it can be hard to swallow as a result.

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While at War

Where to Watch

Karra Elejalde (Miguel) Eduard Fernández (Millán Astray) Santi Prego (Franco) Nathalie Poza (Ana) Luis Bermejo (Nicolás) Tito Valverde (Cabanellas) Patricia López Arnaiz (María) Inma Cuevas (Felisa) Carlos Serrano-Clark (Salvador) Luis Zahera (Atilano)

Alejandro Amenábar

Writer Miguel de Unamuno faces himself and his ideals after the 1936's military coup d'etat.

Recommendations

Summary Salamanca, Spain, 1936. Celebrated writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the military rebellion hoping it will solve the chaotic situation in the country. Meanwhile, General Franco adds his troops to the uprising, secretly aspiring to take command of the war. The conflict turns bloody and with some of his colleagues incarcerated, Unamuno que ... Read More

Directed By : Alejandro Amenábar

Written By : Alejandro Hernández, Alejandro Amenábar

While at War

Karra Elejalde

Eduard Fernández

Millán astray, santi prego.

Nathalie Poza

Luis bermejo, tito valverde, patricia lópez arnaiz, inma cuevas, carlos serrano-clark, luis zahera, ainhoa santamaría.

Luis Callejo

Dafnis balduz, jorge andreu, itziar aizpuru, miquel garcía borda, mariano llorente, casto prieto, critic reviews.

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‘Civil War,’ ‘Independence Day’ and Hollywood’s tradition of blowing up D.C.

Movies and video games frequently annihilate this city of symbols. here’s when it truly works..

This article contains spoilers for the movie “Civil War.”

T he Western Forces descend on Washington.

Tanks and soldiers flood the District, helicopters loom above the low streetscape. The Lincoln Memorial, now a garrison, is destroyed by rocket fire. The invading army’s final target? The Oval Office, where an authoritarian president has lost control of everything. Combat journalists wade through the battlefield so the world can finally see, with horror and relief, how the United States has fallen.

That is how writer and director Alex Garland films the climax of his dystopian thriller “ Civil War .” In it, he envisions a fractured nation: Texas and California have seceded and the Mid-Atlantic is a giant war zone. Critics have split over the movie’s scope and intentions, and whether Garland is playing with fire by invoking real-world political tensions while keeping the particulars blurry. Put me in the pro camp: A meditation on conflict’s tendency to exhilarate, horrify and compromise, “Civil War” teems with terror and suspense. As the protagonists travel circuitously from New York to D.C., they strain to remain impartial as they encounter unimaginable scenes on American soil: armed skirmishes, a mass grave. And then, finally, the destruction of a whole city — this one.

The decimation of Washington in “Civil War” hits you in the gut, which is actually kind of weird. Filmmakers love to destroy Washington. We see them do it — for the wrong reasons — all the time.

A city of symbols has something very important going for it: It’s also a city of shorthands. Pulverizing Washington — sacking it, wrecking it, roughing it up a bit — tells audiences that they’ve just witnessed a cataclysmic, unfathomable loss, a blow to the American spirit. But the most harrowing scenes of D.C. getting ethered — the ones that connect on an emotional level, like in “Civil War” — are from films that want to do more than use the monuments for pyrotechnics practice. Boots on the ground, the suggestion of a real city, are the only way to create intimacy and human stakes.

The most famous offender: “Independence Day,” the massively popular alien invasion film from 1996, in which a flying saucer fires a death ray directly onto the White House. Los Angeles and Manhattan get zapped too — but have some actual humans in the streets, including Harvey Fierstein’s “Oh crap”-sputtering New Yorker . In D.C., any catastrophic loss of life is incidental; the president and his entourage are whisked away from the White House just in time. No thought for those living nearby, no quantifiable loss of life, not even a tourist on Pennsylvania Avenue. Director Roland Emmerich might as well have blown up a dollhouse. In fact, that’s what he did .

That exploding White House is an impressive feat of practical effects, a money shot that intrigued audiences from the movie’s first trailer. But the shallow nature of “Independence Day” can be felt in how often the sequence has been remixed. The shot is a literal punchline in an Austin Powers movie . If you go to the Alamo Drafthouse movie theater in D.C., there’s a statue of Bill Pullman as the president he played in the film. It’s trivial. You cannot fathom “Civil War” lingering in the popular imagination as kitsch, because Garland wants to shake his audience, not have D.C.’s destruction amount to little more than movie magic.

Other, similarly cavalier examples abound. Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks!” (1996) includes a cheeky sequence in which aliens use death rays and UFOs to juggle the Washington Monument until it can fall on a Boy Scout troop. For these cartoonishly evil Martians, that comes with a pay bump, as undoubtedly does dropping a chandelier on the first lady. Like Emmerich, Burton was borrowing Washington’s symbols for his own purposes — in his case, really handing it to elites — but at least his frantic, over-the-top film doesn’t register as glib.

More affecting is the mediocre sci-fi thriller “ The Invasion ” (2007), which is restrained in its assault on the District. But it is a frightening depiction of the city losing its grip, because it presents a ground-eye view of aliens taking control. I barely remember the film, but I have not shaken the image of people flinging themselves off the roof of Union Station.

How about superhero movies? “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” includes a giant hovercraft crashing into the Potomac River (the filmmakers had to digitally widen the waterway for their climactic shot). “X-Men: Days of Future Past” has a scene where the mutant Magneto levitates RFK Stadium from the banks of the Anacostia, then drops it onto the White House South Lawn. Like “Independence Day,” these sequences are technically impressive, but they need a human touch. Before Magneto lifts the football arena, he at least has an exchange with a worker — a human, who lives here! — who can only stand by and watch, powerless.

Blockbuster filmmakers like Emmerich aren’t seeking out character beats when they demolish the District and that’s not why we see his movies — or the decades of chase movies, fight movies, disaster movies and monster movies that ignore the human toll of the carnage they depict — anyway. These scenes are often made with impressive skill and craft, but unless there is a sense of humanity or loss, they’re can’t truly abhor or thrill. We can see an empty, technically proficient exercise when superstorms wreck D.C. in “The Day After Tomorrow,” or Cobra tanks roll toward the Capitol in “G.I. Joe: Retaliation.” Almost all these scenes offer a distant view of the Capitol, rather than the street-level panic they would actually inspire. They don’t hit. The only drawback to finding some humanity in the District would be that directors might become less eager to annihilate it.

W here is the destruction of D.C. affecting? In video games.

Released in 2008 by Bethesda Softworks, the sci-fi role-playing game “Fallout 3” is set in a post-nuclear Washington, D.C. Players wander the National Mall and surrounding areas, known in the game as “The Wasteland.” Memorable dungeons to explore included Metro stations and Smithsonian museums, where players encounter zombies, mutants and giant insects. Ads for “Fallout 3” appeared around the D.C. Metro in 2008, showing the Capitol destroyed by a nuclear blast, and it was disturbing enough that a Washington Post reader wrote a letter to the editor complaining, “The people of our city do not need a daily reminder that Washington is a prime target for an attack. We do not need a daily reminder of what our worst fears look like.”

I wonder what that reader would have made of the 2019 action game “ Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 .” It is set in the near-future and envisions a Washington, D.C., where a genetically engineered virus obliterates the population, so it is up to an elite force of well-armed warriors to stop the city from being taken over by roving street gangs. Like “Fallout,” this game includes shells of famous landmarks, and yet it is the little details where the game finds its haunting verisimilitude. If the player wanders the map, they will find digital reproductions of every business and storefront. Promotional material for the game elaborates how developers used GIS data to get its setting just right, whether it’s each tree lining the Mall or the precise location of the Chinatown gate. The game’s developers even hired locals. Kelly Towles, an artist whose work can be found all over the D.C., contributed in-game graffiti that felt especially accurate to locals like me who are used to seeing his murals all over downtown.

I’ve lived in D.C. since 2006 and have sunk an embarrassing number of hours into both games. It was strangely comforting to wander the National Mall in “Fallout,” wondering whether the Metro could provide adequate shelter during a nuclear blast. In “The Division 2,” I could visit my old office and my favorite local cinema. That game became extra-eerie during the pandemic. In spring 2020, riding my bike through the abandoned streets of D.C. made me feel like a member of the Division, and made me see how the developers stumbled into something singular by making the game about how people might realistically attempt to survive in the actual D.C. When my player wanders into the Air and Space Museum or near the Tidal Basin for a protracted, desperate shootout, the game attains an emotional resonance that often eludes the medium.

“Civil War” does similarly right by this town. Before the Western Forces and the combat journalists can enter the White House, they have to make it past soldiers guarding the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Garland imagines the EEOB protected by large concrete walls designed to repel on-the-ground troops — but it’s honestly not that much more intense than the security theater that visitors encounter in real life when they visit the building for a work event. A city of symbols, sure, but one that can hold multiple meanings. A city you hate to see go boom.

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While at War (2019)

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Review: While At War

by Alfonso Rivera

20/09/2019 - Alejandro Amenábar reconstructs a difficult and decisive moment in Spanish history with his usual sense of precision, but he doesn’t manage to inject the emotion and energy this conflict requires

"When I wrote this screenplay, someone advised me - once they’d read it - not to make the film, because I’d make a lot of enemies along the way", revealed Alejandro Amenábar , shortly before one of the special screenings of his new feature While At War [ + see also: trailer interview: Alejandro Amenábar film profile ] , organised for members of Spain’s Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences ahead of the movie’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and its present showcasing in competition at the 67th San Sebastián International Film Festival . "But thanks to the support of my producer, Fernando Bovaira , we followed through with the project and here is the finished product. Now you are the ones who must decide whether it was worth it", he concluded, before receiving his share of applause.

Already, when filming first began in Salamanca on While At War – which recreates the conflict Miguel de Unamuno lived through in this university town, with his own ideas about supporting the army’s rebellion against the Spanish Republic – it raised a few eyebrows: "Amenábar’s making a film about the civil war?", the most suspicious individuals puzzled. But an incursion into the pages of History by a methodical director who won the Oscar for The Sea Inside [ + see also: trailer film profile ] isn’t actually that surprising: what, after all, was Agora [ + see also: trailer film profile ] if not a political (and anti-fanatic) film?

With While At War , Amenábar is staying true to the style which has characterised his career: extremely well measured and calm, as from the very outset with Thesis . As implied by the title of his debut film, his particular brand of cinema is based on meticulous theories and principles which he goes on to develop in his films. The musician and director gathers together a maximum of information on the topics he broaches, he immerses himself in their recesses and their formulae before emerging with a screenplay which supports a given argument. He did it with Regression [ + see also: film review trailer making of interview: Alejandro Amenábar film profile ] , with Open Your Eyes and now he’s back proving his point once again in a film which tries to hold a mirror up to today’s socio-political situation and the dangerous rise of the far right. It’s a film of denunciation and a warning, therefore, hidden beneath the folds of historical reconstruction.

In order to achieve this, Amenábar hasn’t scrimped on costumes (which come courtesy of Sonia Grande , Woody Allen ’s go-to woman), extras or even locations, of which there are a great many, not to mention characterisation, where we find acting talent including the likes of the leading trio Karra Elejalde , Eduard Fernández and Santi Prego , playing Unamuno, General Millán Astray and the future dictator Francisco Franco, respectively. The film’s packaging, therefore, is impeccable. But can the same be said of its content? Unfortunately not. Though immaculate in its workmanship, the film lacks emotion, risk and spontaneity, not to mention suspense, dramatic force and fear in the face of what lies before them. Everything is so meticulously calculated, executed and well thought out, it’s as if it were a doctoral thesis, ideally suited to an audience of wise men and women in a position to pass judgement on the filmmaker’s theory, but boring for those less versed in the area. Now it’s up to the audience – who are (almost) always faithful to the director of The Others – to decide whether it really was worth making this film.

While At War is a Hispanic-Argentine co-production by Mod Producciones , Movistar Plus+ , Himenóptero , K&S Films and Mientras dure la guerra A.I.E. The film received financial support from the Spanish ICAA (Ministry for Culture) and from the Argentine National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA), while benefitting from a collaboration with the Salamanca City Council and the University of Salamanca, now in its 8th centenary. Sold worldwide by Film Factory Entertainment , the film will hit Spanish cinemas on 27 September, distributed by Buena Vista International Spain .

(Translated from Spanish)

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more about: While at War

Interview: Alejandro Amenábar • Director of While at War

"Changing our minds is what makes us human"

The man behind smash hits such as The Others and Agora returns to historical period films with While at War , in which he relives a decisive political moment in 20th-century Spanish history

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While at war.

2019 ‘Mientras dure la guerra’ Directed by Alejandro Amenábar

Sometimes silence is the worst lie

Salamanca, Spain, 1936. In the early days of the military rebellion that began the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the uprising in the hope that the prevailing political chaos will end. But when the confrontation becomes bloody, Unamuno must question his initial position.

Karra Elejalde Eduard Fernández Santi Prego Nathalie Poza Luis Bermejo Tito Valverde Patricia López Arnaiz Inma Cuevas Carlos Serrano-Clark Luis Zahera Ainhoa Santamaría Mireia Rey Luis Callejo Dafnis Balduz Jorge Andreu Pep Tosar Itziar Aizpuru Miquel García Borda Daniel Luque Mariano Llorente Martina Cariddi Mikel Iglesias Maarten Dannenberg Luka Peroš Alba Fernández Miguel Elías Enrique Asenjo Pedro Nistal Alfredo Villa Show All… Óscar Lara José María del Castillo Álex Villazán Alejandro Chaparro Rafael Clavijo Jorge Silvestre Maher Ángel Agustín Otón Pedro Pablo Isla Rubén Salinero Felipe Andrés Alfonso Asenjo Íñigo Núñez Javier Garcimartín Tim Verardi Ventura Kalász

Director Director

Alejandro Amenábar

Producers Producers

Alejandro Amenábar Fernando Bovaira Domingo Corral Hugo Sigman Belén Sánchez Peinado

Writers Writers

Alejandro Amenábar Alejandro Hernández

Casting Casting

Eva Leira Yolanda Serrano

Editor Editor

Carolina Martínez Urbina

Cinematography Cinematography

Álex Catalán

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Fernando Sánchez-Izquierdo Mercè Coll Eduardo Huete

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Gabriel Arias-Salgado Simón de Santiago Guillem Vidal-Folch

Lighting Lighting

Miguel Ángel Cárdenas

Production Design Production Design

Juan Pedro de Gaspar

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Ángela Nahum

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Juanma Nogales

Title Design Title Design

Natalia Montes

Stunts Stunts

César Solar

Composer Composer

Sound sound.

Gabriel Gutiérrez Aitor Berenguer Gadou Naudin Digba Kurpjel

Costume Design Costume Design

Sonia Grande

Makeup Makeup

Nacho Díaz Ana López-Puigcerver

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Belén López-Puigcerver

Mod Producciones Himenóptero K & S Films Movistar+

Argentina Spain

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

English German Spanish

Releases by Date

06 sep 2019, 21 sep 2019, 01 nov 2019, 25 nov 2019, 06 oct 2020, 27 sep 2019, 28 nov 2019, 19 feb 2020, 28 feb 2020, 26 may 2022, 24 jan 2020, 07 nov 2022, releases by country.

Premiere Toronto International Film Festival
Premiere Torino Film Festival

Netherlands

Premiere Leiden International Film Festival
Theatrical M/12

Russian Federation

Premiere Moscow International Film Festival
Digital 16+
Premiere Donostia-San Sebastián International Film Festival
Theatrical 7

108 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by sara ★★ 5

no, amenábar, en 2019 no nos hace falta un supuesto mensaje de conciliación ni que se intente maquillar al hijo de puta que se encargó de convertir este país durante casi cuarenta años en una ratonera. lo que necesitamos en 2019 es cabeza, un cine que no se entretenga en ambivalencias y, sobre todo, no volver a vernos en la misma situación que en 1936.

Review by Aitor Ramos ★★★½

Amenábar le echa huevos y refleja la cara más amarga de la España actual con el pasado como telón de fondo.

Diseño de producción, vestuario, reparto y dirección excepcionales. No obstante, España y su gente me da tanta pereza que su mensaje no cala en mi gran cosa. Aún así, me parece valiente y digno de admirar trasladar el pensamiento de Unamuno a la actualidad y retratar la cara más cruda del fascismo y del cainismo de los españoles.

Se habla de humanización de Franco y me parece una estupidez. No creo que el mierda que tumbó el pensamiento crítico y las libertades, frenando cualquier atisbo de avance en la sociedad española, quede retratado como un santo en esta cinta.…

Review by JM ★★★ 1

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Se ha tachado mucho a esta película de equidistante, pero ¿acaso no es el tesis de la misma? ¿No es la equidistancia lo que representa Unamuno?

El personaje de Karra Elejalde es alguien desencantado con la república que da su apoyo a la sublevación esperando que traigan paz y orden (porque eso es lo que promete siempre el fascismo, paz y orden a cambio de libertades y derechos civiles), el equivalente del siglo pasado a votar a VOX porque Pedro Sánchez no forma gobierno. Unamuno se niega a ver los males que puede traer eso ("no, no, esto no es como en Italia", "como van a haber fusilado al alcalde, será un accidente de caza", "lo de que han fusilado…

Review by Jorge ★★★½

"Gritan España y creen que significa algo."

Review by candela ★★★

Unamuno te quiero mi niño

Review by Jesús González ★★★

Amenábar intenta abarcar mucho con Mientras dure la guerra (2019), pero me temo se queda a medio camino entre dos películas: el drama histórico y el estudio de personaje; sin alcanzar nada realmente destacable en ninguna de ellas. Brillante cuando se atreve a ser crítica y personal, que solo ocurre de manera fugaz; difusa en su coherencia narrativa; inexplicablemente anticlimática a pesar de basar la resolución de su conflicto narrativo en un momento culminante de gran valor histórico. Fisgoneando las desafortunadas lecturas que se están haciendo sobre ella —una película mediocre, incompleta en todo caso, sin más— me da por pensar que no hemos cambiado nada, seguimos siendo los mismos españoles discutiendo sobre las mismas cosas. Y es en ese aspecto donde la película sí que acierta: en retratar la España de hoy, polarizada hasta extremos desesperanzadores, a través de una mirada reflexiva hacia nuestro pasado.

Review by antonio

nooo franco dont start a fascist regime ur so sexyy

Review by Aitor Salinas ★★½ 1

No seré yo quién diga qué necesita y qué no necesita España, pero si el público considera que lo peor de esta película es la humanización de Franco (y según estoy leyendo, eso parece), entonces los que tenemos un problema somos nosotros. Como si la deshumanización de algo hubiera llevado alguna vez a alguien a alguna parte (buena). Menuda ridiculez.

Obviando el hecho de que es probable que esa humanización sea lo mejor que tiene ‘ Mientras dure la guerra’ y que Franco es el mejor personaje de la película, la búsqueda de cierta realidad objetiva en el conflicto de las dos Españas por parte de Amenábar, aunque fallida, me parece, por lo menos, respetable. En un género que no se…

Review by AlexZ ★★½

Película sobre la moderación, el cambio de chaquetas y lo de arrimarse al poder. Muy Amenábar. Muy Ciudadanos.

Review by Manu Carbajo ★★★★ 1

Me ha parecido una auténtica joya. Una película valiente, contada con una mirada sincera. De los mejores trabajos de Amenábar. Pone los pelos de punta lo bien que refleja muchas cosas que se están viviendo a día de hoy en este país. Todo el reparto está espectacular, pero lo de Karra Elejalde y Eduard Fernández es de otro planeta.

Review by Adrián Viéitez ★½

conservadurismo en las formas, impersonalidad en la puesta en escena y un enciclopédico y deshumanizado aparato narrativo; todo al servicio de una mirada anticuada, cascarrabias, liberal y ambivalente

un cirio aplacado por un despliegue técnico notable, aunque eso poco significa

revistadestape.es/el-reducto-reaccionario-de-la-ficcion

Review by Herald ★★★½

While at War is Alejandro Amenbár's heartbroken love letter to Spain. A letter that is full of conflict and intellectual warfare.

As one who is unfamiliar with this time in history, it was a refreshing treat to learn and also enjoy the performances of this very beautifully shot film.

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War Is Hell, Ain’t It?

For a movie that set off a firestorm with its trailer, Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’ is surprisingly bereft of any major commentary—choosing instead to merely drop the viewer into a war zone and see what happens

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“What’s so civil about war, anyway?” asked Axl Rose back in 1990, when he and his band had the world’s ear. Nobody would accuse Guns N’ Roses of being a political act like, say, U2, but releasing a single that paid homage to Martin Luther King Jr. while critiquing America’s misadventures in Vietnam was a risky move, especially considering the core demographics of their fan base. For extra pop-cultural cred, “Civil War” sampled the villainous prison warden played by Strother Martin in 1967’s Cool Hand Luke , whose ominously drawled warning of “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate” became a sort of sinister catchphrase —a euphemism suggesting progressive rhetoric wrapped around authoritarian brutality like barbed wire. It’s less that Martin’s character is worried about being understood than that he doesn’t want his charges to talk back.

Alex Garland’s Civil War is a movie with a failure to communicate, though not for lack of trying; its maker understands the visual and rhetorical language of agitprop, but he has such a limited vocabulary as a dramatist—and such a narrow agenda as a provocateur—that it doesn’t matter. There is a significant difference between movies that are polarizing because they ask difficult questions and ones that are simply designed to be divisive, and Civil War belongs decisively in the second category. Not only does the film’s depiction of a near-future America smoldering in the wreckage of its own colliding kamikaze ideologies feel borrowed from a number of other sources, but it also rings hollow, precisely because its vision of violent social collapse is so derivative. In attempting to make a movie largely about the ethical dimension of image making—a dilemma experienced by a group of war correspondents wandering through a country that’s become its own private twilight zone—Garland succeeds mostly in exposing his own limitations. He’s a pulp merchant, a purveyor of high-toned exploitation trying his best to strip-mine an anxious election-year zeitgeist while there’s still time.

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Officially, Civil War is an original screenplay, just like 2014’s Ex Machina , the wryly funny, sexily technophobic Bluebeard riff that positioned him as, if not the new Stanley Kubrick, then at least a worthy pretender. Like a lot of successful genre filmmakers—including his countryman Christopher Nolan—Garland is an inveterate magpie, subsuming aesthetic and conceptual material from a range of sources into his own vision. And whatever one thinks of films like Annihilation or Men , they are movies with a vision—carefully engineered acts of world-building suffused with atmosphere and punctuated by striking, unsettling moments. Which is why it’s all the stranger that right from the very beginning the storytelling language of Civil War feels so totally borrowed, including a pair of brazen allusions tilting toward copycatting more than homage. The first is a prologue nodding to the opening of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 in which the president of the United States (Nick Offerman) nervously rehearses a none-too-convincing victory speech from behind barricaded doors; the more he talks about his government’s impending triumph over insurgent forces—specifically, a coalition led by the state governments of Florida and Texas—the more he looks and sounds like a cornered rat. The second reference is even more on the nose: At a rally in downtown New York City, a suicide bomber clad in an American flag ignites a booby-trapped backpack, resulting in carnage whose gory imagery and stylized, ear-ringing sound design are indebted to Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men .

It’s worth noting that Fahrenheit 9/11 and Children of Men are keynote works of what could be called post-9/11 cinema— an early-millennial period when both serious and satirical American filmmakers were aligned in trying to criticize (or, in Moore’s case, outright topple) the Dubya White House. With his smug frat-boy countenance and aides who dated back to Nixon, Bush II was the poster boy for “America: Fuck yeah” and a perfect symbolic scapegoat for filmmakers running the gamut from Gus Van Sant to Sacha Baron Cohen. Two decades later, Hollywood obviously still leans mostly to the left, but the terms of engagement have changed. One thing that Barack Obama and Donald Trump had in common was that while their presidencies were both lightning rods for extremist criticism, they didn’t yield much in the way of memorable or great cinema. The closest thing to a cogent popular political allegory in that period was the ever-reliable Purge franchise, which imagined a silent, seething majority perpetually counting down the hours until a preordained, murderous, insurrectionist return of the repressed.

There’s a potentially great, cathartic dark comedy to be made about the psychology of an event like the Capitol attack of January 6, or about the dangers of unchecked autocracy manifesting as common-sense, anti-woke populism (among his myriad outrageous policy moves, Offerman’s commander in chief apparently opted to gift himself with a third term). Garland, though, is not the guy to thread that particular needle: Where a director like Jordan Peele is able to channel seriousness through sketch-comedy absurdism (including Get Out ’s earlier and superior three-term president joke), Garland doubles down on the idea that he’s doing important work. The strain is palpable. In interviews, the director has explained that Civil War was originally written before January 6 but that the shadow of the insurrection still fell over the production; talking to Dazed , he admitted that he could “detect [it] around the set” and that the bad vibes gave the production “a greater sense of anger.” It’s an interesting observation insofar as the finished film doesn’t so much seethe with rage as ooze a kind of cynical resignation—the sort that comes when a filmmaker either considers himself to be above his subject matter or isn’t being honest about his relationship to the material.

There’s certainly some kind of irony in a guy whose best work—2012’s Dredd , which Garland cowrote and produced with director Pete Travis—is an (exhilarating) exercise in hyperbolic carnage suddenly producing a sanctimonious statement against violence, but otherwise, Civil War doesn’t seem to come from a particularly personal place. Garland’s fascination with female protagonists over the years is laudable, but, as in Annihilation and Men , he can seem to conceive women only in terms of lack: The main character here is a veteran shutterbug named Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst) who’s grown so inured to the sight of death and decay—and her role in sharing it with an increasingly information-starved public—that she’s basically a zombie. If that’s not enough of a cliché, she’s been given a younger kindred spirit as a combination apprentice and surrogate daughter: Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a 20-ish wannabe war correspondent whose lack of worldliness is her defining characteristic. Jessie isn’t a character, but a device; her job will be to carry the torch for journalistic integrity after her mentor (inevitably) meets her demise in the line of duty.

Lest that last bit seem like a spoiler, Civil War is the sort of movie in which hard-edged professionals grimly sit around prophesying their own fates. And although Lee’s arc is predictable, the flatness of the role is no fault of Dunst’s; like Jessie Buckley in Men , the actress inhabits Garland’s barren idea of dramaturgy so fully that she occasionally draws us all the way in with her. Spaeny, meanwhile, is livelier than she was as an anesthetized princess in Priscilla , yet Jessie isn’t much more than a cipher—a device through which we witness a series of showdowns between characters of different allegiances or tableaux testifying to the sheer photogenic brokenness of the social contract. In structural terms, Civil War is a road movie, with Lee and Jessie traveling from New York to Washington in the company of two other members of the fifth estate: a hard-drinking (and, it’s implied, possibly sexually predatory) reporter, Joel (Wagner Moura), and an ex-op-ed specialist, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), both of whom have inside information on the embattled president’s location and hopes of scoring a final interview before he’s toppled once and for all.

Civil War has been set up so that each successive rest stop bristles with a different kind of anxiety. Stopping for gas means encountering a garage’s worth of bloody strung-up dissidents, displayed like trophies for rubberneckers. Despite traveling with the word “press” emblazoned on their van and flak jackets, Lee and her merry band aren’t insulated from the surrounding dangers, and on a few occasions, they even go looking for trouble: A firefight in an abandoned apartment complex eventually finds Jessie growing into her point-and-click instincts. (The juxtaposition of different kinds of “shooting” in this movie is relentless, a pale imitation of motifs developed in Full Metal Jacket , which, like all of Kubrick’s provocations, understood the relationship between savagery and satire.)

A couple of the set pieces are effective, like an idyll in a Lynchian small town whose smiling inhabitants seem oblivious to the larger conflict (the punchline is Garland’s best and shiveriest sight gag), or a pitched battle between snipers whose worldview no longer extends beyond their own scopes. But there are also risible bits, like a nighttime drive through a forest fire where the floating, burning embers are meant as signifiers of some terrible, fatalistic beauty—a scene that, however well shot, practically vibrates with banality. And then there’s the bit featuring a wandering platoon of disillusioned, trigger-happy soldiers—a device Garland used as far back as 28 Days Later —led by a deadpan Jesse Plemons, clad in red heart-shaped shades that mock the idea of seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. “What kind of Americans are you?” he asks our heroes, who, having found themselves on the wrong end of the barrel, don’t know how to answer.

The failure to communicate is ominous, but the question (and its consequences) might be even scarier if we knew what kind of America Civil War took place in. Last month at South by Southwest, Garland got in some trouble when he said that “left and right are ideological arguments about how to run a state” and that he didn’t consider either to be “good or bad.” The statement may have been twisted in bad faith by the media (another irony considering the film’s faith in journalists as truth tellers), but at a minimum, it still suggests a filmmaker who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty with such crass things as sociopolitical specifics.

It may be that trying to fill in the blanks of how the sort of scenario depicted in Civil War could come to pass is a fool’s errand—an invitation to criticism that would weaken an already rickety conceptual infrastructure. (Exhibit A: a fleeting mention of “The Antifa Massacre,” which sounds more like a band name than a possible flashpoint.) But would it really be worse than using America’s current political strife as a coy structuring absence? Would it be worse than Garland acting as if such avoidance makes him the adult in the room? The ostensibly outrageous climax, meanwhile, features sequences of urban warfare meant to drop jaws, but these scenes point in such an obvious direction that the suspense is flattened while the audience is simply flattered into acquiescence. There are a number of genuinely profound movies whose thesis boils down to “war is hell,” several less expensive or pretentious than Civil War , but typically they arrive there honestly, and only after challenging their audience. Civil War , which is somehow simultaneously pedantic and frictionless, feels weirdly like a movie of the moment that won’t last—a victory lap around an observation that was already made by Axl Rose.

Adam Nayman is a film critic, teacher, and author based in Toronto; his book The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together is available now from Abrams.

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Startling if morbid … Félix Bruzzone in Camouflage

Camouflage review – the dark past of Argentina’s dirty war detention centres

Author Félix Bruzzone fronts this haunting film about Campo de Mayo, where his mother was among tens of thousands of people who ‘disappeared’ under the dictatorship

T he dark past of Campo de Mayo, a military camp that once served as a vast detention centre during Argentina’s so-called dirty war , is excavated in Jonathan Perel’s haunting documentary. Following noted author Félix Bruzzone as he jogs alongside the infamous site, the film is structured around the writer’s run in which the past and the present entwine. His encounters with witnesses of the dictatorship’s atrocities show that history is far from dormant, but a living, breathing thing.

Having lived in the area, Bruzzone was only recently made aware of his family ties to the site. Abducted by the secret police and taken to Campo de Mayo, his mother was among the tens of thousands who “disappeared” under the military regime. This painful memory is mirrored by Bruzzone’s conversation with an archaeologist, who talks about the human bones buried under the base, as well as the lush vegetation that flourishes above ground. The juxtaposition is startling if morbid. Indeed, as an estate agent tells Bruzzone: in spite of the camp’s horrific legacy, the prices of nearby properties have steadily risen over the years.

At one point, Bruzzone roams through the landscape wearing a VR headset, which conjures 3D-images of the camp’s torture huts, now demolished. Invisible to the naked eye, the resurrected images are at once fragile and pregnant with meaning, pointing to the impossibility of fully representing past atrocities. At the same time, one sequence where Bruzzone talks with a young woman who sells the camp’s soil to tourists – which struck me as especially staged – turned out to be scripted, with the souvenir vendor played by an actor. Compared to other elements of the film, the transition between documentary and re-enactment is much less fluid. Perhaps this clumsiness is itself symbolic, signalling how the journey towards the past is far from a smooth progression, but instead full of gaps and stumbles.

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Mientras Dure La Guerra Reviews

... clarity in the exposition of a looming, dangerous dictatorship in the guise of patriotism.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 15, 2021

The narrative, despite having a moment that captivates me, lacks verve, dramatic quota, approaching the figure of the philosopher with a certain condescension. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jul 31, 2020

The period feels authentic and the stakes couldn't be higher...fascism is as scary now as it was in the 1930s...

Full Review | Mar 26, 2020

What the director looks for and achieves here is to humanize the morally dubious, cranky, and contradictory character of Unamuno. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 13, 2019

A timely lesson... for new generations. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 30, 2019

The Chilean-Spanish filmmaker's seventh feature film undoubtedly recoups his past prestige. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Oct 8, 2019

...an old-fashioned, somewhat hollow costume drama.

Full Review | Oct 4, 2019

The deeper into the film we get, and the closer the realities of the war become to Unamuno, the more Amenábar and his co-writer Alejandro Hernández lean into the melodrama.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 3, 2019

[Director Alejandro] Amenábar's proposal is diluted in a weak and ineffable historical reconstruction. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Sep 23, 2019

The film too often diverts that endearing spirit towards a lukewarm portrait of the conflict, running the risk of falling into condescension. [Full review in Spanish]

[Karra Elejalde's] performance is as risky as it is meritorious. [Full review in Spanish]

Santi Prego saves the day in that impossible task that is portraying Franco. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 23, 2019

The film about Unamuno in Salamanca opts for neatness rather than tension when it comes to portraying the decisive moment of the Civil War. [Full Review in Spanish]

An interesting twist on the subgenre of Spanish Civil War films and an appreciable reflection of the present from the past. [Full Review in Spanish]

A necessary audiovisual artwork about the power of the ideas in a prewar environment. Really necessary to understand the past but, specially, the present in Spain. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 21, 2019

The similarity of what Amenábar puts on-screen to current American politics is legitimately horrifying. It's nationalism warped into fascism with a blink of an eye.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Sep 11, 2019

Affected by some sentimental moments (accompanied by a pretentious score, due to the director himself), While at war is, however, an urgent call for coherence. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Sep 9, 2019

While at War offers a grand production, fine performances but lacked in emotion.

Full Review | Sep 8, 2019

This is the kind of film where nothing is really out of place and is saved by its impeccable production and music. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 8, 2019

It's insufficiently moving as character-driven piece, but also lacks the urgency and suspense needed to make larger events vivid.

Full Review | Sep 6, 2019

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International Edition

While at War

Sobering storytelling with a lavish design and contemporary warning.

“Drain the swamp”. “ Taking back control” . Or, in the case of Alejandro Amenábar’s 2019 release While at War : “ Long live death ”. Amenábar searingly paints a sobering and sturdy (true) story of the tactics utilised at the onset of the Spanish Civil War to quash and forcefully remove rebellion opposition through propaganda and violence, and demonstrates that such brutal measures only prolong suffering, failing to convince anyone.

In part a loose biography of award-winning academic writer Miguel de Unamuno , but more closely a slow-paced costume drama, the film charts the Spanish military coup of July 1936. At the same time, While At War reflects a synchronous sequence as a putrid knot tightens through a reflection of contemporary correlations between Franco and present politicians: different men, same words.

A priest, a leftist, and a university dean meet for coffee – just as they do every day. But this day is different; there’s tension in the air, boots on the ground, and blood in the square. In the southwestern city of Salamanca, general Francisco Franco is making a powerplay for control of Spain from the republic. At first, Miguel, a world-renowned author and respected dean, sees the uprising as a return of order, even if he disagrees with the methodology. But gradually, as his companions begin to vanish, and the tactics grow more aggressive, Miguel struggles to maintain composure, questioning himself and his passive ideals.

The success of the film sits at the knees of Karra Elejalde ‘s conviction of performance, holding together the melodramatic aspects and broad strokes of historical storytelling. Arrogant, suave but understandably accomplished and proud, Elejalde captures this esteemed position with a quiet conviction throughout, bursting forth with appropriate emotion when required. His chemistry with friends and foes (it’s often difficult to tell which is which) is magnetic, whether it is an aggressive friendly competition against Carlos Serrano-Clark with Salvador’s leftist views or a stand-off with the patient, collected and unnerving Franco.

The measured, inner performance of Santi Prego amongst a brood of bellowing howling men is petrifying as the film advances. Seldom raising his voice, the raging fire behind Franco’s eyes marks him as a man set on personal and familial success; a man who will torch the nation to achieve an ambition is troubling in a film where our other antagonists skirt the edges of obscene and cartoonish.

Lavish on multiple levels of design, Sonia Grande captures the preening extravagance of Fascists of the era, draped in their military paraphernalia. Endless rows of insignia-toting soldiers and boys line the streets of Salamanca, the uniformity and distinct colour patterns harsh against the sandstone and pastels of the Spanish sun. No one struts their peacock-esque stance quite like Millán Astray : the cripple, the military hero and master of propaganda played by Eduard Fernández . Álex Catalán’s cinematography manages to capture the intensity of conversation, narrowing the focus to force audiences into uncomfortable situations.

While at War takes a sobering and at times bracing manner in communicating the events of the Spanish Civil War. Some watchers may argue that the film doesn’t go far enough to lean into the devastation of Franco’s rise, while others may find discomfort in how open the film is to demonstrate both sides of the conflict, falling victim to the same indecisiveness Miguel did in reality. But what While At War undoubtedly achieves is conveying a sense of sober storytelling.

Screening as part of Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival 2021

IMAGES

Movie review: While At War
While at War (2019)
While at War (2019)
While at War (2019)
‎While at War (2019) directed by Alejandro Amenábar • Reviews, film
While At War (2019) Movie Review from Eye for Film

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COMMENTS

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Alejandro Amenábar takes a stately approach to General Franco's rise to power in Spain in his latest, which also explores, through the experiences and actions of celebrated Spanish writer Miguel da Unamuno, how easily complacency or ambivalence can be turned into complicity - an idea that, sadly, never seems to lose its political resonance ...
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While At War is a lyrical and symbolic meditation of the Spanish philosopher and writer Miguel de Unamuno that speaks directly to a modern audience, warning against the dangers of political apathy, fascism, and ambiguity.. In the summer of 1936, famed Spanish writer and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno publicly supports the military rebellion, believing it will bring order to chaos in Spain.
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While at War: Directed by Alejandro Amenábar. With Karra Elejalde, Eduard Fernández, Santi Prego, Nathalie Poza. Writer Miguel de Unamuno faces himself and his ideals after the 1936's military coup d'etat.
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Civil War is a powerful, thought-provoking movie punctuated by intense moments of violence and dread, and one you should go see on the biggest screen possible. The end of the film is unsettling ...
While at War (2019)
Writer Miguel de Unamuno faces himself and his ideals after the 1936's military coup d'etat.
While at War
Salamanca, Spain, 1936. Celebrated writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the military rebellion hoping it will solve the chaotic situation in the country. Meanwhile, General Franco adds his troops to the uprising, secretly aspiring to take command of the war. The conflict turns bloody and with some of his colleagues incarcerated, Unamuno questions his initial posture. When Franco transfers his ...
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The most famous offender: "Independence Day," the massively popular alien invasion film from 1996, in which a flying saucer fires a death ray directly onto the White House. Los Angeles and ...
While at War (2019)
During the first months of the Spanish civil war a senior professor and famous writer, Miguel de Unamuno, doesn't take the uprising too seriously. Cooler heads will prevail he believes. Yet as his friends and colleagues disappear, Miguel realizes he made a great mistake. While at War is based on real events and the belief that Franco has not ...
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Review: While At War
Review: While At War. ... organised for members of Spain's Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences ahead of the movie's world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and its present showcasing in competition at the 67th San Sebastián ... While At War is a Hispanic-Argentine co-production by Mod Producciones ...
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‎While at War (2019) directed by Alejandro Amenábar • Reviews, film
Synopsis. Sometimes silence is the worst lie. Salamanca, Spain, 1936. In the early days of the military rebellion that began the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the uprising in the hope that the prevailing political chaos will end. But when the confrontation becomes bloody, Unamuno must question his initial position.
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Officially, Civil War is an original screenplay, just like 2014's Ex Machina, the wryly funny, sexily technophobic Bluebeard riff that positioned him as, if not the new Stanley Kubrick, then at ...
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Last modified on Mon 22 Apr 2024 02.02 EDT. T he dark past of Campo de Mayo, a military camp that once served as a vast detention centre during Argentina's so-called dirty war, is excavated in ...
Mientras Dure La Guerra
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 15, 2021. The narrative, despite having a moment that captivates me, lacks verve, dramatic quota, approaching the figure of the philosopher with a certain ...
Civil War film review
Amid the careful fiction, the film can't quite resist a crafty wink. To begin, a coiffed president of the rump republic cranks the hyperbole to promise "the greatest victory in the history of ...
While at War
"Drain the swamp". " Taking back control". Or, in the case of Alejandro Amenábar's 2019 release While at War: " Long live death ". Amenábar searingly paints a sobering and sturdy (true) story of the tactics utilised at the onset of the Spanish Civil War to quash and forcefully remove rebellion opposition through propaganda and violence, and demonstrates that such brutal ...

‘Civil War’ Is an Amazing Film of Imagination and Cinematic Verve

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Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 5, 2019. (Also in San Sebastian Film Festival.) Running time: 107 MIN. (Original title: “Mientras Dure la Guerra”)

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