By One of the most talked about elements of Alex Garland’s “Civil War” in early reviews is that it has been fairly apolitical.
The story takes place in the United States in the not-so-distant future, when nineteen states have seceded from the union and are now made up of factions.
The narrative follows a warzone photographer and others making their way across a country gone mad. As a result it stays on the sidelines in a conflict, which is NOT a red vs. blue state scenario, and observes it relatively objectively.
Choosing to serve as an examination of the dangers of polarization, as opposed to simply fueling the fires of one political stance, has drawn criticism from people. Some want him to offer more explicit connections to real life, others aren’t happy that the film doesn’t “choose a side”.
Garland doesn’t care. Speaking with THR in the wake of the film’s premiere at SXSW, he says the last thing he wants to do is lecture people:
“Why are we talking and not listening? We’ve lost trust in the media and politicians. And some in the media are wonderful and some politicians are wonderful – on both sides of the divide.
I have a political position and I have good friends on the other side of that political divide. Honestly, I’m not trying to be cute: What’s so hard about that? Why are we shutting [conversation] down?
Left and right are ideological arguments about how to run a state. That’s all they are. They are not a right or wrong, or good and bad. It’s which do you think has greater efficacy? That’s it. You try one, and if that doesn’t work out, you vote it out, and you try again a different way. That’s a process.
But we’ve made it into ‘good and bad.’ We made it into a moral issue, and it’s f—– idiotic, and incredibly dangerous … I personally [blame] some of this on social media. There is a an interaction that exists human-to-human that floats away when it reaches a public forum.”
According to those who’ve seen it, the main journalist characters in the film are conservative, not liberal, and that was a purposeful creative decision made by Garland. How much debate will the film stir? We’ll find out when the film opens in cinemas on April 12th.
The post Garland On The Apoliticism Of “Civil War” appeared first on Dark Horizons.
