'One Battle After Another' Rages a Gust Busting War Against Tyranny
Paul Thomas Anderson gets political, and it pays off in spades. One Battle After Another is a kinetic thrill ride that hardly lets up. Its ingenuity is evident in Anderson's masterful use of the aesthetics he has employed over his career. Once a fan who emulated Martin Scorsese to Stanley Kubrick, Anderson has found a voice that has been one of the most influential over the past 20 years. One Battle After Another is a solidification of PTA's cinematic expertise. It's not the first time PTA has been political. He went after big oil and the Church of Scientology before, but he has never been as overtly upset as he is with this film.
There's a notable trend among filmmakers these days, where movies depicting a dystopian American society have become prevalent in many popular narratives. Whether it be Ari Aster's Eddington or Francis Lawrence's The Long Walk. America has become a terrifying place. We're on the brink of total collapse, so why not laugh at it?
One Battle After Another is a sinistically dark comedy. It's the kind of nutso humor you'd find in a PTA film. It's unapologetically sexual, features heavy usage of pot, and displays the incompetence of humanity. There are many moments where we're laughing at the cast of this story because of how foolish they are. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a former civil war hero who's a burnt-out, mind-fried pot head. He can't remember anything, such as the code word (or time) to gain access to his destination from the resistance. Plus, he's emotionally immature. By the middle of the film, DiCaprio is running around in his bathrobe looking like Jeff Lebowski while in a perpetual state of panicked confusion.
On the opposite end of foolishness is Sean Penn playing Steven Lockjaw, a high-ranking military officer who's cracking down on revolutionaries. He also loves the taste of chocolate. And I'm not talking about candy. In one particular scene, Lockjaw runs into Bob Ferguson (DiCaprio) in the grocery store, where he antagonizes him by intensely telling Bob how he loves black women. It's as ridiculous as it sounds, yet so marvelously absurd. That's the beauty of PTAs' work. Nobody would ever speak as generally as they do in his films. PTA uses the medium of cinema to create unbelievable moments of poor behavior that have the audience cackling while also clutching their pearls.
PTA's movies are shot on celluloid. Even on the crappy modern-day digital projector the movie was being presented on, the noticability in format superiority is clear as day. Where digital looks artificial, film is gritty, with a higher black to white ratio, further depth of field, natural movement (for the eye), and superior color space. There's a timelessness in the image that was sorely missing in The Long Walk's amateurish digital cinematography. That ageless appearance helps make a contemporary film resonate with any era. Paul hasn't made a modern piece since Punch Drunk Love. Desperate times equate to desperate measures as Paul Thomas Anderson crafts an incredibly bleak comedy that's a statement on the absurdity of violence.
Everyone in this film (minus Bob's daughter) is a bafoon. Where Anderson often sees optimism in his films, there's also a large degree of cynicism. Look no further than There Will Be Blood as his commentary on the greed of man and their foolish Darwinian nature. Instead of being shocked by the violence, Anderson has us laughing at it, particularly during a key scene involving Sean Penn. Real skirmishes aren't coordinated like they are in the movies. Look up any YouTube fight for an example. Combat is disorganized and, at times, unintentionally funny. One Battle After Another shows how the cycle of violence is a tragic comedy.
Humans are mockable creatures. Anderson can clearly see that, as shown in the film, it doesn't matter whose side you're on; you'll just continually lose until you eventually give up, get locked up, or die. Simultaneously, however, Anderson is clearly making a fight-the-system type of narrative. The antagonists of the film, held under the secretive name "The Christmas Adventure Club," disapprove of immigration, mixed-race marriages, and same sex relationships. Yet they name their club after a holiday for a man who taught compassion. If Jesus were to visit Earth, it doesn't seem likely he would be welcoming towards his bigoted fan clubs. The Christmas Adventure Club (which sounds like South Park's pedophile Super Adventure Club) wraps their meetings with a "hail Saint Nick" as if they're actually hailing Satan.
When religious ideology is thrown into our political mix, this is the result. The separation between Church and State becomes exploited, allowing radical views to militarize a country whose words should matter over its weapons. The movie doesn't reward violence against the Imperial State, the US has fallen under, yet it doesn't condemn it either. It clearly takes a side that shouldn't be misinterpreted as a call to arms, since the entire film is about violence leading nowhere.
For a movie that's short of three hours, its length hardly feels like an issue. The film is paced like a three-hour montage. The audience is slammed with a heavy score from long-time collaborator Johnny Greenwood that will wake you up with its incredibly loud sound mix. A mix that might be too noisy, making me worry the speakers in the theater were going to blow out upon hearing their crackling, just barely being able to hang onto the score.
One Battle After Another is unrelentingly, depressingly fun. There's a ton of anger coming from filmmakers recently. Ari Aster made a movie about society’s failure to come together during COVID, Benny Safdie directs a picture about a fighter, and PTA has made a movie about a long-standing civil war. People might complain that these artists should stop bashing those in power while focusing on disposable entertainment. But forget that. Film is meant to be a reflection on human history and where it can lead us.
Underneath One Battle After Another's audacity is a movie about the dangers of revolution, yet there are glimmers of hope. DiCaprio's character is on the moral high ground, while Sean Penn's Steve Lockjaw is a fear-mongering hypocrite. The ending is a bit Hollywood with its uplifting message, yet underneath all that is a dark undercurrent of what may be a never-ending conflict. War is not funny, but people sure are. Not only is One Battle After Another one of the best pictures of the year, but also one of the funniest comedies to hit the big screen in a long time. It's a laugh track to our own demise, which Americans can still make until the orange man in charge successfully ceases free speech. It's best to enjoy honest, daring pictures like this while we still have them.
