Warfare

Alex Garland follows up his fantastic (fictional) 2024 movie Civil War with this gripping reenactment of a real-life miliary engagement. The filmmakers’ objective was to deliver the most realistic portrayal of what it’s like to be in an armed conflict, and this film unquestionably achieves that goal.

Premise:  During the Iraq War in 2006, a platoon of US Navy SEALs seized a civilian house under the cover of darkness to set up a sniper position in support of other US operations in the area.  But as day breaks, they begin to suspect that Iraqi insurgents have become aware of their position.

Review:

Last year, Alex Garland released Civil War, which was a fantastic character-driven movie that explored existential themes about the toll that war takes on the human soul.  Although it was by no means an ‘action film’, the third act involved a full-scale military assault on Washington DC and the White House that was as impressively staged as any fictional combat that I’ve seen on screen.

A lot of the credit for the believability of those scenes belongs to former US Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza, who was Civil War’s military supervisor.  Alex Garland was clearly impressed with Ray Mendoza’s work on that film, as he then decided to co-write and co-direct Warfare with him.  The script for Warfare is not a traditional Hollywood script – there’s no three-act structure, no script-doctored banter, no cliched backstories, no tropes and no unnecessary plot twists.  Instead, the script is based purely on the recollections and memories of the soldiers who actually experienced these events on 19 November 2006.

“…as a technical piece of cinema, it’s an incredible achievement…”

As a result of this approach, even before the conflict proper begins, the film has an air of authenticity that feels far removed from usual Hollywood action films.  The characters (all of whom are based on the real people involved) go about their business efficiently and professionally – there's no talk of backstories or ‘the girl waiting for me back home’, and instead, an uneasy mix of tension and boredom hangs in the air as the soldiers maintain their watch on a market square in the stifling heat.

The film divides into two clear parts – the build-up and then the conflict itself.  The build-up isn’t filmed in real-time and takes place over several hours (starting with the SEALs’ nighttime invasion of an Iraqi family’s home while the occupants are sleeping) – but as soon as the first bullets are fired, the events unfold in real-time, and the audience is put into the soldiers’ shoes amidst all of the confusion, disorientation and bloodshed.

“…the cast give phenomenally well-grounded performances…”

As a technical piece of cinema, Warfare is an incredible achievement.  I understand that the way in which Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza directed the movie is that Garland dealt with the camerawork and technical elements, while Mendoza worked with the actors to help them understand what the soldiers had been going through, moment to moment.  The cast is universally great, mixing relative unknowns (like D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai who plays Ray Mendoza in the film) with established talents like Will Poulter, Joseph Quinn, Cosmo Jarvis and Michael Gandolfini, alongside up-and-comers like Kit Connor and Finn Bennett.

Many of the survivors of the real-life events visited the set, and between their involvement and Ray Mendoza’s work with the actors, it ensures that the cast give phenomenally well-grounded performances.  There is no Hollywood bravado on display here – when characters are horrifically injured, they scream in pain in ways I’ve rarely seen depicted on screen, while others do the best they can despite clearly suffering from concussion and shock.

“…the sound design is key to putting the audience right in there amongst the action…”

On top of the grounded performances and immersive camerawork, the other key element of this cinematic experience is the sound design.  Sound design is one of those professions where in 99% of films you won’t even notice it’s there – but in a film like this, it’s the secret to the film’s impact.  Whether it’s the quiet, still moments before the storm, or the deafening roar of an overhead jet, or the sensory overload of a disoriented soldier, the sound design is key to putting the audience right in there amongst the action.

I think it’s also important to take this film for what it intended to be, not for what it could have been in other filmmakers’ hands.  Just as some reviewers (wrongly, in my opinion) criticised Civil War for not more explicitly delving into which side was ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, Warfare has been criticised by some reviewers for not examining the conflict in the wider context of why the US troops were in Iraq in the first place.  But to me, those reviewers are missing the point – the film was never intended to be about the morality of warfare, it was always intended to be about the reality of war.  The people on the ground in any armed conflict don’t have the luxury of examining the politics behind the conflict, they’re simply trying to complete their mission and come home in one piece, which is what this film is focused on.  This film still enables the audience to ask questions about whether the price paid by the soldiers, insurgents and innocent Iraqis was worth it in the wider context of what we now know about the Iraq War – but those are questions for the audience to answer, not for the characters or even the filmmakers.

“…an immersive & visceral cinematic experience…”

This is a lean film – 95 minutes including credits – which is stripped back to the bone, meaning that some viewers may have preferred more plot or more character development.  But again, that would have been contradictory to the filmmakers’ goal of making the most realistic portrayal of warfare that they could.  Real-life conflict doesn’t have a ‘plot’, and those in the middle of it aren’t sat around discussing their backstories – but that said, the performances here are all so three-dimensional that you get a real sense of who the various characters are despite their limited dialogue.

Warfare is a rare thing – a true story told by the people who actually lived through the events depicted.  As such, it’s a personal, subjective representation of warfare, but it’s hard to imagine anything that could be more subjective than actually living through experiences like those shown here.  As an immersive, visceral cinematic experience, this is up there with the Oscar-winning 1917, except this time there’s the added impact of knowing that it’s not only a true story, but it’s a true story told from the perspectives of those who survived the ordeal.  Given the subject matter, it may not be a film that I can say I ‘enjoyed’ in the traditional sense of the word, but it’s a film that’s stuck with me for days, and one that I can’t wait to see again.

(Incidentally, I think Alex Garland’s fictional, tense, contemplative thriller Civil War would make a great double-bill with his immersive, traumatic and at-times-overwhelming Warfare, as they both feel like two-sides of the same thematic coin).