Warfare and Electric Dreams
Warfare I got a last minute ticket for a preview of the new A24 film Warfare with a short Q&A with the director Alex Garland and a couple of the cast (Kit Connor and Cosmo Jarvis) It was in the BFI IMAX which is probably the best way to see this immersive experience. Garland's previous film, Civil War took a neutral view of a fictional civil war in America. It was graphic and grim, a sort of updated Apocalypse Now about war being pointless and hellish, but he got some criticism about not taking a moral stance. This film takes it further in many ways, although it is about a real mission that went wrong in Iraq in 2006. The film tries to remove any editorialising or imposition of narrative structure or morality, instead just letting it play out in real time over 90 minutes. Based on the accounts of the US Navy Seals who were there, there is no hero, back story or character development; in fact it is often difficult to tell the men apa...