LIU BEISM IN FILM: 5 LESSONS FROM "ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER"
WE ARE INTERRUPTED BY REGULAR INVESTIGATION INTO THE MINDS OF COLONIZERS FOR A JOYOUS DEPICTION OF THE TRIUMPH OF HUMANITY OVER THE BANALITY OF EVIL:
I CALL MYSELF ZHUGE LIANG, AFTER THE GREAT STRATEGIST OF ANTIQUITY, AND I HAVE FIVE KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM MR ANDERSON'S FILM "ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER".
"YOU HAVE BEEN CAPTURED BY THE FRENCH SEVENTY FIVE!"
It's not often I see films that feel like that they were made for Me Specifically. It confronts the costs of "War" without dragging us through endless holocaust and allows us to have some light at the end of the tunnel. This feature is the inverse of how I often say "SICARIO is a documentary", but it is not without tragedy of course. I mean, shit, our baby mama "rat" (and they call her a damn "rat" more than once for snitching) announces herself as "Parfidia", literally "betrayer". The movie in the first five minutes is wearing all its emotions on its sleeves. It's not here to fool you. So listen up, let's have a good time. We have to take every moment we get.
LESSON ONE: Don't fuck around. But it's alright to fuck up.
The "resistance" or whoever Leonardo and Taylor's crew really are in whole, they get real damn cocky at the beginning. Teyana's "Parfidia" messing around with Penn's "Lockjaw" instead of just "disposing" of him snowballs into a lot of horrible circumstances. She's not the only one to let ego go to her head, though. It's a great set-up, idealists mixed up with regular folks and die hard "line of revolutionaries". The heist goes bad, and the film doesn't hold your hand about it. Some of the characters loudly announce their intentions, but the "Grand Theft Auto" vibes of it all adds a flair in the opening act that reminds one of a certain Nolan franchise. Unlike the Dark Knight, however, there's more substance beyond the grievances of Bush administration supporters - Anderson shows us the human cost of "fighting the good fight" - paranoia, PTSD, drug abuse, etc. He has better answers about what saves us in the end as well.
LESSON TWO: You have to do your homework.
This bites everybody in the ass several times. First, Captain, then later Colonel Lockjaw, is auditioning and being observed by this white supremacist secret society, and his delusional single mindedness condemns him to his fate. The "Christmas Adventurers Club" who are dedicated to a "racially pure" (yuck) version of the United States and the world at large, say they get "lucky" and find an old interview mentioning Lockjaw's twisted relationship with Parfidia. If Lockjaw had an ounce of integrity like "Ghetto" Pat, now Bob, he might have seen such a thing coming. But Lesson One - don't fuck around. Bob forgets the password and admits the weed has fried his brain, he could have saved a lot of time and heartache. Great situational irony, but shows that the passion of youth is no substitute for rigor (Pat says more than once his paranoia didn't save him or Willa). Fear is good and all, keeps you alive, yes "they" are always watching, but it isn't the core of the struggle.
Willa herself is the only one committed to the theory and method taught to her by her father, but she still fails Lesson One (I mean she's only 15, right? Hard to begrudge her wanting to text her friends) in the first half of the film. She regrets this and she becomes hardened quickly. It's heartbreaking to watch.
Everything revolves around the fear of the nasty Other in OBAA, which is an intentional jab at Trumpian rhetoric and the historic fascist coalitions that spurred him to power. The film begins in a particular time and place in order to give us the intensity of a father and daughter who are struggling to Do the Right Thing. I almost thought we began in 1999, but I was only a young warthog at that time. It's not lost on me either how vulgarly evil the villains are in OBAA - some might find this outlandish or taking away from the seriousness of the violence, but I think the tone overall matches not just our current political climate but how villains of this type generally speak to each other "behind closed doors".
LESSON THREE: MAKING FRIENDS IS THE FIRST PART OF WAR :)
It should not be lost on anyone that Benecio's "Sensei Sergio" is 80% of the reason Pat makes it back to Willa. He's got, as he puts it, "kind of a Latino Harriet Tubman" situation going on. He's a bad motherfucker. But he's a pleasant and chill guy too! As tightly wound as Pat is without the weed, Sergio keeps him focused throughout much of the movie. How many friends do you have that would give you a gun, beer, and drive you through hell? AND GET ARRESTED FOR YOU? That's the kind of friend you need in a time of chaos.
Make no mistake, what Sergio does for Pat comes at great risk, but he shrugs it off. He knew, one way or another, la migra were coming and he'd have to uproot his people like evacuating Echo Base from Hoth.
"We’ve been laid siege for hundreds of years. You did nothing wrong. Don’t get selfish."
LOCKJAW: "Do you think you’re my daughter?
WILLA: "It doesn’t matter what that test says. I have a father, and it’s not you."
LESSON FOUR: COMMUNITY IS THE GREATEST POWER OF ALL
Maybe you'd think this was our last lesson but follow me a bit further. The so called "French 75" as depicted is a movement made up of people doing little things here and there who care about their friends and family. Pat is a fuck up and kind of a reject, but despite the disapproval of Parfidia's mom and sister, they still do all they can for him and Willa to get away and build a new life. Sergio plays the tio role in Willa's life as her sensei and the first thing he does when Pat/Bob is separated and in trouble is nod his head and introduces him to his familia he is sheltering. This is all contrasted against the trauma of the first act where Parfidia went rogue, abandoned Willa to go "do the revolution" (perhaps to hide her post partum depression). It's about honesty and sincerity versus the repressed sexuality of Lockjaw, the tyrannical vision of the Blofeld-esque "Christmas Adventurers". Pat is not Dad of the Year! But he cares. And he's willing to do whatever it takes to learn from his mistakes. There is a pivotal moment at the end of the film, after he's run all over the Southwest in search of his daugher. He's finally caught up to Willa, who has been on her own harrowing Princess Peach arc, and she entrapped and killed her pursuer ("Virgil"? Wearing red? in a blue car? Hmmmm!). She used the codewords he taught her to keep herself safe and it works. But this is where the film states that Love is what Saves Us. She's shouting. She knows it's her father. But she can't take any more chances. I really thought she was going to shoot him for a minute. But Pat talks her down.
"WHO ARE YOU!?" "It's me! It's your dad!" He promises an end to paranoia. It's Enough. They go back to the crappy junker he stole. They ride off. Pat makes good on his promise. The last scene shows him confessing he wanted to be "the cool dad" but he just didn't know how. Willa reads a letter from Parfidia that Pat has been keeping for years. It's hope that time will heal her mother wound and maybe, they'll meet again. She embraces her role as a revolutionary and goes out to fight, driving three hours to Oakland to answer an SOS.
FINAL LESSON: BREATHE.
It's a long damn film and once we get going, it really is, "One Battle After Another". It's tragicomedy at its height, but there's no bittersweetness to it. We kill the Terminator, but la lucha continua, there's still villains and schemers out there doing oppression. Paul Thomas Anderson recognizes that this hyper violent culture is one that many people are doing everything they can to make it something better and looks beyond the smoke and the fire to find humanity and honor. Maybe "the war" won't end for Willa/Charlene in her lifetime, for me or you, but we can still hold each other close, and we can build love and power in the chaos.
