It's (Almost) Impossible to Make an Antiwar Film
Added 2025-07-29 01:25:24 +0000 UTCFrancois Truffaut once said every movie about war ends up being pro-war, but was he correct?
Enjoy this early access, (mostly) uncensored cut of one of potentially my favourite video we've ever made! Looking forward to your thoughts :)
Also - Premiere wouldn't let me export the cut without the Patreon shoutout at the beginning, huge apologies for that!
xx
Comments
One of your very best videos! This was very thought-provoking and I think you're points stand up clear and strong.
Andrew Ray
2025-07-31 05:43:47 +0000 UTCThe definition you gave of a true anti war film is so spot on and something I won’t forget
Michaela🌹
2025-07-30 21:26:39 +0000 UTCExtremely thought-provoking as always. I am glad you're here putting out such high-quality film analysis vids. Some miscellaneous thoughts: 1. I honestly don't know what it means for a film to be pro- or anti-*anything*, but I did enjoy the definition of "anti-war" you offered at the end. Still mulling it over. 2. "...and, because it's A24, all about aesthetics." I lol'd 3. I think it's difficult for a film to talk about imperialism when it's so focused on the soldiers. And I'm not sure that taking on the perspective of the innocent civilian really sheds much light on imperialism either (not that you said it did). To talk about imperialism you really need to focus on who starts wars in the first place and why they do it. I think that's why the Chapo boys like the Avatar movies so much: they are like obnoxiously explicit about the motives for invading the blue alien planet (forget what it's called). I didn't really care for them lol 4. I haven't seen Jarhead, but I wonder whether the whole making-the-viewer-feel-disappointed-that-we-don't-get-to-kill-that-guy thing is sort of like the director trying to show the viewer how easy it is to get emotionally invested in supporting something evil. Like the film is asking us: "Hey, you feel that? You see how you're literally rooting for a guy to get killed right now? You see how easy it is?" Looking forward to the next one...
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
2025-07-30 20:47:07 +0000 UTCI appreciate this comment, and acknowledge that that is a bit of a blindspot for me! Although I am not necessarily arguing that Come and See (and Grave of the Fireflies) do not have a POV at all, just that our surrogate character is not a soldier, but rather in both instances a child. The killing of "collaborators" is common among resistance/insurgent movements (the same went for the Viet Cong and NVA for example - which is portrayed in Full Metal Jacket), but I'm sure Klimov was working under massive constraints from the Soviet government (which he experienced many times in his career) in how he was able to portray the Partisans. I think if Flyora was an adult member of the Partisans I would see the film in those terms, but his being a child who is dropped from the movement complicates things because we don't spend much of the movie undergoing combat or espionage. But I acknowledge that the film has a Soviet-leaning POV for sure. Thank you for the comment, and I'm very very sorry to hear about your family.
Broey Deschanel
2025-07-30 19:52:04 +0000 UTCThank you for your excellent work! Since the subject of your study has hit close to my family experience (my parents are being bombed in Ukraine, while other family members fight on the front to repel the aggressor), it is quite possible my criticism will appear one-sided to some. While the overall conclusion of your video (Not in Hollywood) is fully supported, I'm befuddled by the choice to include Klimov's Come and See into the praised list of supposedly not POV movies. It is a very much POV movie, and for someone like me who is only one generation removed from the events. My dad was trapped on a "school holiday" with Belarusian grandparents from 1941 till 1943, while his mother in Ukraine presumed her children lost. According to his recollections, Soviet partisans would not hesitate to burn the families of whoever they considered to be “collaborators”. This part is not captured in any Soviet movie, being a straight propaganda nor an artistic achievement such as Elem Klimov’s movie. I am rather exasperated by the naivete of Western liberals, who do not understand that WW2 was equally triggered by Hitler and Stalin. Anyway, in my opinion, before identifying an anti-war movie, one should first define if the war in question is a war of choice or a war of necessity. The former must be stopped, while the latter must be won. For the latter, watch "2000 meters to Andriivka" (though formally a documentary, it has a strong constructed narrative).
Олексій (Alexey Ladokhin)
2025-07-30 19:14:58 +0000 UTCGreat vid; thanks :) I agree with everything you said about GOTF, and was asking myself "Does anybody watch it twice?" when you answered <3
frogsmore
2025-07-30 11:26:27 +0000 UTCHard agree on your perspective here! Per your definition I'd add ' the time that remains' to your list of actual antiwar films. I watched it a few months ago and it moved me deeply. And I don't think I'll watch it again.
Karlie
2025-07-30 06:57:38 +0000 UTCI think the most recent adaptation is almost too beautiful/too set in the warzone to be fully antiwar! the book does not suffer the same problem because it's literature - still need to watch the original though !
Broey Deschanel
2025-07-29 21:06:39 +0000 UTCGreat video! I wonder if the closest a Hollywood film ever got to being truly "anti-war" was Kubrick's "Paths of Glory." I've only seen it once (and to your point, it's not necessarily something I'm super eager to revisit) but I recall it being the most anti-war war film I'd seen at the time. It's hard to imagine something similar being made by a Hollywood studio today.
Dr Boffa
2025-07-29 18:30:23 +0000 UTCOut of curiosity, have you read the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, or seen the 1930 film? I wonder if the 2022 adaptation would have been an anti-war film had it left in the parts about Paul’s adolescence and his return to his hometown while on leave.
Andrew Hoppe
2025-07-29 03:50:02 +0000 UTCI wrote a thesis on the 1950s fiction of Richard Matheson positing that the alienation Matheson experienced as a combat soldier in Germany in 1945 informed his fiction, and that this alienated view gave Matheson key insights into the unheimlich of suburban horror which emerged as the phenomenon of the dormitory suburb was being created by white flight and interstate highways. The impact of war distorted Matheson's perceptions of civilian life. His son Chris called him Mr Paranoid. His protagonists face bland, implacable, and faceless antagonists that have no motives or reasons for their enmity. Scott Carey is exposed to radioactive insecticide and begins shrinking. His precarity and loss of agency are the impersonal consequences of something he has no say in or anything he particularly has done. None of Robert Neville's research and experiments bring him anywhere near a meaningful understanding of the bacterium induced vampire plague that has destroyed humanity. His isolation and alienation from the new vampire species is accompanied by alcoholism, depression, and virulent misogyny that renders his final self-aggrandisation as a future legendary figure in vampire folklore as impotent and pointless. This is the poor soldier's lot: destructive and senseless. There is no jesting or being jolly to spin the heavy world, not for Joker, Paul, Seita and Setsuko, or Florya. I agree with you that there is such thing as an anti war film. It is in the effects and the aftermath, not in the exciting action. I came to your work attracted by the insights and thoughtfulness. I remain a supporter because of this quality and I want to see you continue.
Nic Farra
2025-07-29 03:03:31 +0000 UTCcathy linh che has this incredible poetry collection that explores how her parents, refugees from the war in vietnam, were subsequently cast in apocalypse now as extras after fleeing to america. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Becoming-Ghost/Cathy-Linh-Che/9781668088920 also, this was such a good video! really appreciated your perspective :))
max
2025-07-29 02:49:04 +0000 UTC
