Cinemanarrative Dissonance and Anti-War films.

So this is my second post on Cinemanarrative Dissonance, a term I didn't coin but want to help popularize.

In the first post I talked about how this related to the Male Gaze, which was the context of the example provided in the Folding Ideas Video I got the term from.  Anti-War films didn't come up in that video but did in the comments section.

I discussed the issues that Anti-Wars films often have in my post about Kong Skull Island.  That was my knew jerk reaction to express my general enjoyment of that film, so I may have gone over board, it too has ways you could interpret it as being Pro "the right kind of War", via the Island needing Kong to defend it from the ugly less human looking lizard monsters.  Still, I definitely stand by the Gundam franchise being the best Anti-War genre fiction.

It basically comes down to how much the need for the violence to be entertaining, undermines the objective of making it horrific.  Again, this too is perhaps easier to do allegorically with some Sci-Fi or Fantasy horrificness.  When it's Lovecraftian Elderich Abominations or Giant Robots destroying buildings and lives, our subconscious is less likely to decide that looking cool makes it good in real life cause we know it presumably can't happen in real life.  Examples of this can go from how the original Gojira works as an allegory for Nuclear War, to how good Miyazaki is at making things look unnaturally ugly in films like Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke.

Still, the main suggestion I want to make today, is that if you really want to have a completely realistic Anti-War film.  Maybe the solution is not to go the Gritty front line horror route.  But rather to, and this will offend the-fanboy-perspective blog endlessly, not seek an R rating.

When you're depicting the people on the front lines, you're depicting the people who even the most already inclined to be Anti-War viewers are naturally likely to sympathize with.  There is a desire to view the brave warrior on the front line as worthy of respect, maybe as a victim rather then a hero, but still worthy of respect.  And I think that really lies at the heart of how Anti-War films unintentionally undermine themselves, even if it doesn't directly seem like the main reason.

Maybe it's better to focus more on the people who aren't on the front lines, the people who aren't directly risking their lives as much, yet are much more the reason the Wars happen to begin with.  The politicians and really high ranking generals.  Show their cold detachment.  Much of Lawrence of Arabia does this, which is why I like that film so much.