🎬 #168 Real Warfare.
Just one film this week, I apologise, but it’s been on my mind since I’ve seen it and unlike my usual suggestions it’s currently in cinemas right now. And it was one of the films I’d noted being very excited to see in an earlier newsletter.
Happy viewing or rather intensely sombre, panic inducing, viewing,
Bry
FILM: WARFARE
2025 Dir Alex Garland & Ray Mendoza
1 hr 35 mins
I was lucky enough to grab tickets to an early preview screening of this, where filmmaker and screenwriter Alex Garland introduced the film along with a few of the key cast members including Cosmo Jarvis. Garland co-directed the film and co-wrote the screenplay along with Ray Mendoza. Ray was one of the soldiers in the event depicted in the film. Where a group of marines quickly find themselves under-siege during a fairly routine operation in the Iraq war - an event which would become known, together with others, as the Battle Of Ramadi.
Garland made such a great point in the intro where he talked about being totally liberated from the ‘creative’ side of filmmaking - both in the writing and directing. And because of this, there was absolutely no reliance on the common tropes that might be familiar from a more traditional ‘war film.’ He and Mendoza constructed the entire film from the memories of those who were there, and every event in the scene was corroborated by at least two people present. He went so far to refer to himself and even the actors as technicians - there to construct the events as closely as possible to what happened, all in real time. He gave the example of perhaps on another film - an actor, during blocking, might say, ‘I feel like my character would be standing by the window for this moment.’ But here no one had input like that because people could verify if that person was actually there for that moment.
I have to say as well that you should seek this film out in the largest and loudest screen possible, because seeing it in IMAX was so intense I was on the verge of a panic attack once things kicked off. The realism of the violence, the real time nature and the fact, placed somewhere in the back of your mind, that this exact thing happened to a real person makes everything feel a lot more gut wrenching. Especially after Garland has introduced it by saying everything has been meticulously recreated from memory. You can’t just dismiss it as the horrific generalities of a wider conflict. And the relative recent history gives every a vividness- every injury has a certain grab you by the neck, look and don’t look away. The sound design too makes every gun shot feel more real - there’s no stock sounding gunfire01a files in the mix here. The bullets pop, crunch, grenades land with no heroics involved. Just a group of men caught in a house, trying to survive. The real time quality also means that any onscreen violence extends out - there’s no cut forward in time to 3 hours later when ‘they’re feeling ok and not screaming any more.’ You’re in it with them, blood, smoke and all.
I’ve seen a couple of reviews where people have said they were left feeling empty as if it was a negative take. I’d say this makes the film a resounding success. There are no high fives, or hoo ha’s - just people in a situation and trying to keep it together. This is the type of film where remembering to pick up your tools and take them with you [simple in normal life] is as prosaic as it is an incredibly dangerous and harrowing event.
*Out in cinemas now in the US and UK.
Fact: The film was shot chronologically over the course of 5 weeks in the UK.