Latest news with #realism
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Alex Garland's ‘Warfare' Generated Tons of Controversy. Here's Why You Should See It Anyway
Warfare, the new film from co-directors Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, appears to be one of the most realistic and grueling combat films ever made. It's one of this year's best films, but it's doubtful you'll be able to stomach it more than once (if that). It would be trite for anyone who's not seen combat to say that Warfare is a realistic depiction of battle, but it vibrates with the nauseating feeling of authenticity. The film has generated a fair amount of controversy, with some identifying it as jingoist propaganda, but that could not be further from the truth. Garland is the prolific screenwriter behind 28 Days Later (and the upcoming 28 Years Later), and the director of Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018). His previous film, 2024's Civil War, was one of the best American films of last year. It was a gritty but simultaneously poetic piece of speculative fiction concerning a Stateside civil war, the roots and details of which remained delightfully unexplained. The point was not what brought us there, but how we extricate ourselves from it. Civil War diluted its queasier elements with a thrumming soundtrack, a warm central relationship between characters played by Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny, and a satisfying-if-brutal climax in which insurgents storm the White House and, well, you can guess the rest. Warfare contains none of those audience concessions. It's grisly, unpleasant, genuinely horrifying filmmaking which is emphatically not a piece of propaganda nor entertainment but rather a gigantic question mark over the idea of combat itself. It's a spectacular piece of cinema, one of the most visceral and immersive movies you're likely to see; but it's extremely unpleasant to wrote and directed the picture with Mendoza, a former Navy SEAL, on whose experience the film is based. Mendoza worked as a military adviser on Civil War, and his influence is felt in that film's authentic milieu (particularly that final Oval Office skirmish). Warfare, which takes place mostly in real-time, chronicles a mission undertaken by Mendoza's platoon in November 2006 in Ramadi, Iraq, which went terribly wrong. We watch as the group — led by Will Poulter's Eric and including D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai as Mendoza and Cosmo Jarvis as his best friend, Elliot — takes over a residential home, knocking down a wall that separates their apartment from another family and confining the civilians to the basement. Elliot and another sniper, Frank (Taylor John Smith), take positions monitoring a building across the street. Slowly, activity starts building around the apartment block. Parents begin clearing their children off the street. An unseen assailant tosses a grenade into the apartment, and chaos ensues. From that point on, the film is a dire combat diary about the platoon's struggle to simply stay alive. Mendoza and Garland undertook what the former described as a 'detective-like approach' to unravel the different fragments of recollection from those involved. 'This film uses only their memories,' an opening title card tells us of Mendoza and his comrades. A statement at the very end of the film's credits goes further: 'This film is based on interviews with people involved, and a handful of photographs,' it explains. 'The film attempts to reconstruct the incident with as much accuracy as memory allows.' Warfare has provoked ire and controversy in certain circles over what some deem to be a thread of jingoistic patriotism running through the film. One wonders if those people have seen Garland and Mendoza's movie or simply judged the trailer. Much like Civil War, Warfare de-contextualizes the conflict and plainly presents, in Garland's words, 'an incident of warfare.' Just one, like many before and after. There is no politicizing, no monologues explaining the plot, or even errant dialogue hinting at the cause the main characters are striving towards. Warfare presents its characters and situations at face value, allowing the audience to put their own interpretation on events. There is no traditional film score, no musical stings, no reprieve from the sensory assault. As such, it's gratingly, brilliantly claustrophobic. As it focuses on a group of American military personnel and largely keeps off-screen the faceless 'jihadists' who are attacking them, one could draw inferences that the film is pro-American military, but to actually believe that would be to willfully ignore the message of the film, not to mention the craft behind it. It's simply a memory piece of those involved, and one senses that Garland and Mendoza would make an equally humane film about the other side of the conflict were they provided with that perspective. A brief coda, focusing on the Iraqi family in whose home most of the action unfolds, expresses unequivocally with whom the directors sympathize. Likewise, the film's final shot is a gut-punch of desperation. What was it all for?There is no heroic derring-do on display here, no moments where any of the ensemble have an opportunity to distinguish themselves with a bit of cool action. Warfare removes the inherent cinema behind violence, presenting it as it is: confusing, scary, and unceasing. There's not a single frame of this movie which is framed in an exciting or titillating manner. It seems impossible, and frankly a bit nauseating, to imagine that anyone would watch Warfare and be entertained by it, or think that there is anything glamorous about what's depicted. It's the harshest possible rebuke to the sexy, Miller-time combat depicted in Hollywood productions like Top Gun: Maverick, which functioned nominally as a hyped-up recruitment video. Warfare demands to be shown as the second half of a double bill with that film, so opposed and convincing is its stance. Warfare is certainly one of the most emphatically anti-war films ever made. It's a properly grueling experience which is commendable for the ringer through which it puts its audience, and for the sheer skill behind its filmmaking. It's highly unlikely you'll want to watch Warfare more than once (whether you want to stomach it at all is worth interrogating), but it's a film of remarkable integrity which unfailingly maintains the strength of its conviction. It offers viewers, from the comfort of their couches, a glimpse of a world they would be lucky never to see.
Washington Post
03-06-2025
- General
- Washington Post
Trump's foreign policy is ‘realist' except when it isn't
The divide between 'realists' and 'idealists' in foreign policy is simplistic but useful. Realists think the purpose of American foreign policy is to protect the country's physical security and wealth. Idealists think the United States should promote democracy and human rights abroad. There's huge overlap, of course, but the categories help separate those who see the world through the lens of national interest and those who see it through the lens of morals and values.
News.com.au
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
We Made This Film With AI. It's Wild and Slightly Terrifying.
AI tools like Google's Veo 3 and Runway can now create strikingly realistic video. WSJ's Joanna Stern and Jarrard Cole put them to the test in a film made almost entirely with AI. Watch the film and then see how they did it.
Wall Street Journal
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
We Made This Film With AI. It's Wild and Slightly Terrifying.
AI tools like Google's Veo 3 and Runway can now create strikingly realistic video. WSJ's Joanna Stern and Jarrard Cole put them to the test in a film made almost entirely with AI. Watch the film and then see how they did it. Photo: AI Generated
CBC
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
At 95, Canadian artist and naturalist Robert Bateman still paints every day
Canadian artist and naturalist Robert Bateman celebrated his 95th birthday on May 24 — and while many would have considered retirement long ago, slowing down hasn't crossed his mind. Bateman is still showing his work at solo exhibitions and international shows, painting every day and enjoying the nature surrounding his Salt Spring Island, B.C., home, where he's lived for 40 years. He started painting as a young boy — his first piece was of an elk. For many years, he dabbled in abstract art, before focusing on the realism he's known for today. Bateman spoke to CBC's Gregor Craigie ahead of his milestone birthday. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Happy birthday! The 24th of May is the Queen's Victoria's Birthday. We always had a holiday on the 24th and fireworks. I think it affected my brain, having a holiday in fireworks on my birthday every year. I looked at your itinerary not long ago and it doesn't look like the itinerary of somebody who's about to turn 95. You're still keeping very busy with painting and art and talking and education and so on. I'm fairly spry. I walk more slowly cause I tripped on a blackberry bramble and basically tore the foot off the bottom of my right leg but so I kind of limp, but otherwise I'm pretty good. How are you keeping busy these days? It doesn't seem to have changed from what it's been for decades. I'm painting every day. I still have a demand for my work. There's a waiting list of people that want commissions, and I tell them, 'Don't hold your breath. I may get to it, I may not.' There are two de rigueur things that I do every year. One is the Birds in Art Exhibition. It's an annual show in Wisconsin at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. I've been doing that for many, many decades. And the other one is the Society of Animal Artists. Both of them are international, centred in the States. Those are things that are not for sale. Those are things that I do to show the best I still can do. You're still painting today. What goes through your mind when you look at some of your older paintings? How does the 2025 version of you look back at the paintings from decades gone by? Well, when I was a lot younger, I went through various phases and stages which most or many artists have done well. Picasso is famous for his blue period and rose period, et cetera. Andrew Wyeth never went through stages. He started out as a realist and was always a realist. I went through these different stages of abstraction, and I thought I was always going to be an abstract painter, and then I went on to other stages, But quite literally, Andrew Wyeth came to me as — if you know your Bible — my road to Damascus. I thought that abstract was the future of art. Now, abstract is kind of a quaint thing. It turned out that Andrew Wyeth never cared about that. He just always painted realistic stuff. There's two parts to me that are virtually equal. I can't say which dominates, the artist or the naturalist. You cannot be a naturalist and just do big gobs of paint, which is what I was doing, like the abstract expressionists like Jackson Pollock and so on. Big gobs of paint just don't show the particularity of how do you tell a song sparrow from a Savannah sparrow? I gradually evolved out of my abstract snobbery and have been painting realism ever since, as I say, for decades. Do you ever do any abstract work just for yourself? No. Been there, done that. I was pleased with that work and I'm so proud of it. We still hang some of my abstracts in the house. My wife Birgit is an abstract artist who evolved into doing fabric art, but abstract designs, starting with nature and then taking it and pushing it into decorative designs. Can you envision other evolutions for yourself from an artistic point of view? No, you have to be a straight realist if you're going to be a naturalist, and care about particularity. I'm where I belong. I don't think it's just laziness. It's much more interesting to get involved with the particularity of the individual species, so I can't see anything ahead that would be different in style. You've been on Salt Spring Island for many years. Do you still find inspiration for your art around you in your specific location? Yes. Without moving from looking out our windows, I could have a lifetime of subject matter. We go a little bit further afield. We happen to have a family cottage on Hornby Island, so some of my subject matter comes from that area. Occasionally I have a reason to paint subject matter that I got from different trips that I've taken. I don't think I'm going to be painting very many trips. Paintings from the magnum opus trip, which was around the world in a Land Rover back in 1957-58. I don't need to travel particularly anymore. This sounds a bit too nostalgic, but I've got tons and tons of memories.
