It’s been two weeks Ever since I saw Alex Garland’s civil war, I still can’t get the chilling events of those last few minutes out of my head. Several big things happen in the final moments of the movie, adding an avalanche of emotion on top of everything you’re already feeling. The film is shocking and tense enough But in the end, you’ll feel sadness, shock, relief, pride, excitement, and more before the credits roll. I don’t know about you, but I had to stand in stunned silence for a few minutes before I left.
Recently, io9 interviewed Film writer/director Alex Garland and asked him about the inspiration for the ending and how it all came together.
To recap, during the battle for Washington, D.C., Lee (Kirsten Dunst), Joel (Wagner Moura) and Jesse (Kelly Spaeny) found themselves in the White House. As Secret Service agents began fighting back to defend the president, the soldiers they followed moved deeper into the building. In order to get the perfect photo, Jesse gets caught in the line of fire and is about to be shot. Lee jumps in front of the bullet and we see her get killed. Jesse took a series of still photos from the ground, with Lee standing and then falling on top of her.
“It’s kind of the cinematic baton-passing grammar,” Garland said of Lee’s death and how he represented it. “It’s interesting to put still frames into moving frames that themselves are actually still frames that just flicker around us. It’s kind of a departure from the older characters in terms of what happens over the course of the film. The transition to a younger character felt like an appropriate way to describe that moment.”
Interestingly, Garland admitted that he messed up the moment and changed it while editing. “It’s not written as a series of shots of someone filming, winding, filming, winding,” Garland said. “It was written as a captured image… perfect photography. But actually, in the editing, the sequence contained a lot more power. So, that’s what I did.”
After Lee died, Jesse and Joel had no time to mourn and had to continue searching for the president, which they did. He’s about to be executed, and Joel asks the soldiers not to do it so he can get an offer. “Don’t let them kill me,” he said. And then they did it anyway. Jesse is there to capture images.
The film’s end credits begin to roll, and Jesse’s photo of soldiers lying on top of the president slowly unfolds. “This movie tries to connect to reality in some way [other] A lot of times it’s more important than the movie,” Garland said of the decision. “So the grammar of it usually comes from life experience, photojournalism, news footage or documentaries. This is the framework of it. In fact, that trophy shot with humans as trophies is something you find time and time again. It actually happens in the form you see. So there’s something that feels right for the photography, for the protagonists and their journey, but is also actually real. So when the movie ends, it’s a final kick in the teeth of a strange, unsettling reality. “
civil war Now in theaters.
Correction 4/12/24 7:30 pm: The original version contained an incorrect quote from the president and has been edited.
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