for the second time this year i've had the gift of watching a film in love with photography and cinematography
the reviews of alex garland's Civil War have almost obsessively tried to interpret it as some kind of allegory about current american politics and journalistic morality, which distracts from an exquisitely (horrifying) photographic experience
there are moments where it just lets you confront, in a raw and uncompromising manner, the powers of photojournalistic storytelling.
anyone who has held an SLR before and tried to do justice to something they witnessed knows this feeling.
that's what the film does best, and tries to do best. i can't think of another film that pulls off the same without veering into melodrama (e.g. Saving Private Ryan)
@vga256 Yes! I went in expecting a war movie. Which... it is, I guess. I went in expecting a political movie. Which it... really isn't, except in the most loose "we have to pay some lip service to this" way.
What I got was a love letter to the joys and frustrations of photography, and I not only watched it that first time loving it? I immediately, like 2 days later, watched it again to show it to someone else.