Sunday Blog #1: It’s the end of the world as we know it… Okie-dokie!
Civil War and Fallout deliver a dystopian weekend
With international wars, climate change and divisional politics surging into our everyday lives, do we really need their reflection in drama? Aren’t the colours of the real world defined enough without fictional representations on cinema screens and in 4K with HDR?
Much of Hollywood’s output in the late 60s and early 70s (historically defined as the ‘New Hollywood’ era) reflected – albeit, for the most part, indirectly – the political flames of the time. Arthur Penn wanted to evoke the Kennedy Assassination at the end of Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Robert Altman’s MASH (1970) is set in the Korean War, but it’s really about Vietnam. And although the release of The Godfather (1972) predated Nixon’s impeachment, the distrust around politicians undoubtedly contributed to the film’s success – rated as one of the greatest of all time. Despite being a tumultuous period in the world, it was glorious for cinema.
Maybe it’s post-viewing ecstasy, but Alex Garland’s new film Civil War feels like a step forward – a threshold, perhaps, into a new era of movies. It’s a journo-drama as much as a road movie, following a band of writers and photographers driving from New York to Washington, DC, across a fraught dystopia of sectarian violence. This not-so-United States is filled with blood and machine guns, the ‘Western Forces’ of Texas and California rising against the President (played by Nick Offerman).
The world is vague; you’re unsure who’s fighting whom, what’s motivating the massacres. However, as the prominent photo-journalist Lee (a brazen Kirsten Dunst) explains, they are there to record and not to participate. Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny (who I mistook for Frankie Curio in the trailers) stars as the young, ambitious, but exceedingly naive photographer Jessie. She’s the surrogate for all of us; the entryway to devastation. Lee is largely desensitised as she mocks Jessie’s visible trauma. The core of the experience, in my mind, is that – despite potential explanations from those miles from the conflict – it’s a different story on the ground. Chaos reigns with absurdity as its mistress. Both Lee and Jessie discuss their families in Colorado and Missouri, who pretend the violent schisms don’t exist. I couldn’t help but think about Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, an evocation of genocidal ignorance, when the journalists pass through an all-American town untouched by bullets and bombs.
Similar evocations can be found in Fallout (Prime Video), which opens in a retro-futuristic world with TVs strenuously declaring imminent nuclear annihilation at a children’s birthday party. The mother switches off the broadcasts so they can all enjoy themselves. Outside the window, a gleaming Los Angeles is reduced to ash. However, series creators Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner make this a point of pitch-black comedy – perfectly adapting the tone of the Bethesda video games on which the story is based.
Fallout 3 filled a lot of my life as a teenager (thankfully before my GCSEs): roaming around a post-apocalyptic wasteland (Washington, DC) to accomplish quests, visit scrapheap towns, and shoot things to shit. I was excited and dubious about a TV adaptation, but the series is an exciting, funny and ridiculous adventure – like The Last of Us but with a better sense of humour.
Similarly to Civil War, there’s also a naive, ambitious young woman at the centre who doesn’t know what she’s in for. The bright-eyed Lucy (an endlessly adorkable Ella Purnell) is strong, silly and led with an intense moral compass. She’s initially a lifelong resident of Vault 33, a subterranean home for the rich to hide from the perils of the wasteland. She escapes the vault to explore a world deprived of its morality – society reduced to day-by-day survival – but her spirit is undying. She reminds me a bit of Joy in Inside Out, if Joy could kick the arses of violent raiders.
Watching these eight episodes, I didn’t expect so much moral philosophy to come into play – exciting the A-Level pupil in me. The blighted California of Fallout is a collation of absolutist factions: the competitive capitalism of Vault-Tec, the holy and militaristic order of the Brotherhood of Steel, and the accepted nihilism in a post-apocalyptic Wild West (represented by a 260-year-old, bounty-hunting ghoul). Although Lucy comes from the Golden Rule ideologies of Vault 33, those codes have to find compromises in the outside world; she’s the relativist hero, finding nuance in people and systems. Like all great dystopias, Fallout represents the dogmas and divisions of today.
ON TV THIS WEEK
Blue Lights series 2, BBC One (Mon 15th April, 9pm – 10pm)
Although the BBC have had a presence in Northern Ireland for nearly 100 years, it feels like regular engagement with the country and its past has only recently spread into the broader British media. Think of Bloodlands and Once Upon A Time in Northern Ireland as well as the more light-hearted (though nonetheless poignant) Channel 4 comedy Derry Girls. Blue Lights fits into a similar category: not directly about The Troubles, but tracing its influence in the modern day. The cop drama was rated as one of the best series of last year, following rookie officers enduring everything from drunken disturbances to organised crime.
Series 2 starts on Monday, and sees veteran Lee Thompson (Seamus O’Hara) returning to his childhood town and seeing it torn apart by drugs and crime. Reacting to this, he decides to start a one-man revolution that causes chaos for the police. Co-creator Declan Lawn (The Undeclared War, The Salisbury Poisonings) claims this series to be ‘bigger, bolder and more dramatic. Series one was about our recruits having their feet held in the fire and in series two they are firmly in the fire.’ (BBC Media Centre)
Well, I should probably get cracking on series one then…
Michael Palin in Nigeria, Channel 5 (Tues 16th April, 9pm – 10pm)
As a Monty Python fan, it’s shameful to admit how little I’ve seen of Michael Palin’s travel career. I remember watching some clips from the BBC nostalgia trip Michael Palin: Travels of a Lifetime, and I was surprised by his effortless charm and empathy. It’s still strange why Channel 5 and not the BBC have hosted his recent excursions to Iraq and North Korea, though he implied on a One Show interview that the former broadcaster was more independent than the latter. Given the descriptions of his latest travelogue – a 1,300-mile trip across Nigeria – I suppose you can understand the BBC’s hesitation.
As well as entering the nation’s capital Lagos, he flies to the Islamic North (a region of Sharia Law and Boko Haram strongholds). Kidnapping is apparently a genuine concern. And yet, the 80-year-old Palin seems ready to take the risks. He gave a nice and slightly mournful interview in The Guardian this week, which is a great read.
Feud: Capote vs the Swans, Disney+ (Wed 17th April)
Tom Hollander is one of those actors who’s always been around. Always recognisable, but not mega-famous – despite leading plenty of series (Rev, Us) and starring in Hollywood blockbusters (Pirates of the Caribbean). However, he’s gathered recent attention for his role as the gay sophisticate in The White Lotus season 2. And this perfectly pre-empts his depiction of the eloquently camp Truman Capote in Feud: Capote vs the Swans. Personally, I don’t believe anyone can trump the unforgettable interpretation by Philip Seymour Hoffman in Bennett Miller’s 2005 biopic of the author, but Hollander’s a performative treasure and so will probably pull it off.
The eight-part series – a spiritual sequel to Ryan Murphy’s 2017 glam drama Bette and Joan – follows female socialites in 60s and 70s New York, who embrace Capote into their circles… until the latter turns against them, exposing their secrets in his writing. Capote vs the Swans looks less like a Capote drama, and more an ensemble of slighted women intent on revenge – portrayed by Naomi Watts, Molly Ringwald, Demi Moore, Chloë Sevigny and Jessica Lange.
IN CINEMAS THIS WEEK
Sometimes I Think About Dying, dir. Rachel Lambert
Indie movies focused on lonely, anxious characters tend to pull me in… for whatever reason… I dunno…
I’ve not seen nearly enough of Daisy Ridley since the Star Wars sequel trilogy ended; she starred in some less venerated sci-fi projects that didn’t really appeal to me. But in Sometimes I Think About Dying, she seems to be entering more profound and understated period of her career. Ridley stars as an office worker, drifting through life, until a colleague tries to connect with her.
The Book of Clarence, dir. Jeymes Samuel
A kind of inverted Life of Brian – instead of everyone following a messiah who refutes his own holiness, The Book of Clarence sees a man in Biblical times capitalising on Jesus’s recent miracles. LaKeith Stanfield (Sorry to Bother You, Atlanta) is always a joy, but I’m not utterly convinced by the premise. Director Jeymes Samuel did an alright job with The Harder They Fall, a revisionist Western with a mostly Black cast, but it wasn’t too memorable.
Jeanne du Barry, dir. Maïwenn
I’m not especially motivated to see this raunchy period drama, set in 18th-century France. Not due to the subject matter or the genre, but because of the controversies surrounding both Johnny Depp (well-publicised) and director/star Maïwenn (who admitted to assaulting a journalist). But there’s a high-budget grandiosity to Jeanne du Barry that looks… intriguing?
The story follows Louis XV (Depp) and his scandalous relationship with Jeanne Bécu (Maïwenn), a bastard seamstress who ascends into the French aristocracy as Louis’ last mistress.
IN THE NEWS…
Sadly, Eleanor Coppola has died. She made one of the best BTS films of all time: Hearts of Darkness (see above), which chronicles her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s efforts to make Apocalypse Now. Despite PR-encouraged regularity on YouTube and as DVD extras, there are few BTS films worth watching. Genuinely good examples can be counted on one hand: Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams, about Fitzcarraldo; Vivian Kubrick’s verité-like approach to The Shining set; the numerous appendices to The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But the zenith example is Coppola’s, digging into the chaos behind a bleak and brilliant anti-war nightmare.
Speaking of Francis Ford Coppola, his new film Megapolis is one of a number of enticing entries at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. This is the biggest noise Coppola’s made in years, self-funding the film’s $120 million budget with plenty of disruption, delays, and pessimistic screening reactions… But I have a feeling it’s the risk that the modern movie industry needs. I mentioned the New Hollywood before and Coppola is intrinsic to that movement; maybe he’s our salvation. Other directors premiering their films include Andrea Arnold (Bird), David Cronenberg (The Shrouds), Yorgos Lanthimos (Kinds of Kindness), Paul Schrader (Oh Canada), Sean Baker (Anora), Leos Carax (C’est Pas Moi), Paolo Sorrentino (Parthenape), Ali Abbasi (The Apprentice), Noémie Merlant (The Balconettes) and Jacques Audiard (Emilia Perez).
David Lynch – my all-time favourite filmmaker – is struggling to fund his latest project Snootworld. It was even rejected by Netflix, who are notorious for accepting everything. The streaming platform previously distributed Lynch’s short film WHAT DID JACK DO?, set around a detective (played by Lynch) interrogating a monkey suspect. Snootworld is a feature-length animation co-written by Edward Scissorhands scribe Caroline Thompson, and follows a group of miniature beings called ‘Snoots’ that become smaller with age. Lynch has incorporated plenty of animation into his work, so it’s a good fit, but there are still doubts around whether he’ll direct the project or not. If he does, it’d be his first film in 18 years – since Inland Empire in 2006. Obviously, I want to see Snootworld for the same reasons I want to see Megapolis: give the masters what they want!
TRAILER PARK
Bridgerton season 3, Netflix
Joker: Folie à Deux, dir. Todd Phillips
MaXXXine, dir. Ti West
Speak No Evil (US remake), dir. James Watkins