Warfare

Not much has come as close to articulating the phrase ‘war is hell’ than Warfare, the newest film from Alex Garland.

Describing it as a film in some ways isn’t even entirely right, this is a great example of cinema as experience.

Warfare is an immersive sensory overload which also serves as a tribute to the immensely brave and courageous soldiers it depicts.

As a true story this feels as close to a ‘cinematic documentary’ as you can get as we follow, in effectively real time, a troop of Seals on a surveillance mission that goes wrong in Iraq in 2006.

It works almost like a horror film, a true exercise in what the camera can do to put the viewer as close as possible to feeling the events through a screen.

There’s no conventional script patter here of exposition, there’s not even any music (other than the scenes which bookend the film). Just as true and accurate a depiction as possible of the events.

It’s not as pointedly political as Garland’s film of last year: Civil War, but still perfectly articulates at once the futility of the situation whilst spotlighting the bravery of those involved.

A true cinema experience, this is not a film for every occasion. However, as that aforementioned ‘experience’, Warfare is essential viewing.

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