Civil War (2024)
Director: Alex Garland
The world thought the USA's second Civil War was about to start when Donald Trump lost his second term in office. The Capital Building ambush by Trump's far-right supporters on 6th January 2021 was forever enshrined as the biggest desecration of the American democracy.
In this movie version, it is sometime in the future when America is in a civil war. America is divided into areas controlled by regional militias and other extreme factions. The President is re-elected for a third term, and people are unhappy. There is mayhem in the country. Local vigilantes have taken control of most areas. In essence, it is like a war zone.
Amidst this chaos, two photojournalists have to travel by road across the country to Washington, DC, to interview the President. The film is about their experience of seeing America in a civil war.
I was intrigued by the special privileges and status that journalists hold when they carry out their jobs in high-risk areas. The Geneva Convention has determined that they should be protected. Journalists have the right to report things as they see, as they are supposedly giving firsthand accounts of events. They are given special privileges to attend events deemed of public interest. Journalists are also protected from having to reveal the source of their information.
As the world awakens from its long slumber, the question is whether the journalists' accounts of events are indeed the undeniable 'truth'? If schooling taught us anything, it told us that History lessons taught to us are testimonies written by victors. We are often fed with contradictory news in the immediate past and the present. It is expected to get many versions of what is happening in Ukraine, such as who is winning and who has more casualties. In the Israel-Hamas conflict, every journalist from either side paints a different picture of the situation on the ground.
Previously, the CCP insisted that Urghur Camps in Xin Jiang were reeducation centres, whilst many opposers of China insisted they were nothing like internment camps of dissidents.
Another thing that keeps cropping up is fake photos of victims in war-torn zones. It is often mentioned that many of the so-called 'victims' were paid actors who kept on appearing again and again at various disaster sites. An Afghani girl with amber-hued irises who emerged during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan was seen resurfacing during the Syrian civil war. Then, the tale of the walking corpse. I guess journalism had lost its professionalism and integrity.
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