'Warfare', a shocking audiovisual experience at the heart of war
The highly anticipated film by Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza is coming to the cinema. Also among the new releases is 'Dangerous Animals'.
3' min read
3' min read
Not a war film we are used to: it is definitely something different 'Warfare', Alex Garland's new feature film and the big star of the weekend in theatres.
The reason is that an experienced director such as Garland (author of 'Ex Machina', 'Annihilation', 'Men' and 'Civil War') chose to be joined in the directing booth by Ray Mendoza, a former Navy SEAL who had already collaborated with the British author on the previous 'Civil War'.
'Warfare' is directly based on Mendoza's own testimony during the Iraq war: the film recounts what his unit experienced during a high-risk mission in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2006.
What is immediately striking is the realism with which even we viewers are catapulted into such a dangerous space: American soldiers forcibly take the flat of an Iraqi family, holding them as hostages, and using those walls as a base of operations from which to observe what is happening outside. They thus believe they have the situation under control, but in reality they will soon be discovered and attacked in an unexpected manner.
The experience offered by Garland and Mendoza is therefore extremely concise and claustrophobic, capable of making us feel at the heart of the conflict not only thanks to the images but also (and perhaps above all) to the excellent work on the sound: between gunshots and bombardments, words and breaths of the soldiers, the audio editing is of excellent workmanship and capable of conveying even more the veracity of the situation.
