It's no surprise that commentators on the right, the far right, and the extreme right (I think this includes the coastal zone), from Ben Shapiro to film critic Armond White, have pounced on “One battle after another“, accusing it of being a “leftist” film made for leftist elites sitting in their leftist bubble. The right wing, led by President Trump, will now say that about almost everything. They treated yesterday's No Kings protest, with its massive influx of outraged citizens, as if it were some crazy group of hippie terrorists.
It was a little more surprising to see the same criticism leveled at One Battle After Another. by Bret Easton Elliswho thinks the reviewers applauded Paul Thomas Andersonand re-rated it “because it really fits that kind of left-wing sensibility.” Ellis later added on his podcast: “You have the left-wing and entertainment press supporting this movie to such an absurd degree that it seems unnatural.” I consider myself a fan of Ellis (I was once a guest on his podcast) and enjoy the independence of his voice, so the fact that he's not crazy about “One Battle After Another” is fine by me. I'm all for discussion. But I think labeling the film as “leftist” feeds into the very stereotypical thinking that Ellis believes he's fighting.
Moreover, if you believe as I do, part of the power of One Battle After Another is that it No, in fact, this is a left-wing film, and it is important to understand how this misperception is fueled by many people… on the left. Set in an authoritarian America similar to the one we might be heading toward (it envisions what the country might start to look like if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act), the film focuses for a time on a ragtag band of revolutionary guerrillas. And since the film is clearly on their side, I think much of the entertainment media is reflexively treating One Battle After Another as if the film itself was raising a revolutionary fist—and as if there was something “leftist” about attacking authoritarianism. No.
This is not just a matter of semantics. In a strange way, the celebration of One Battle After Another as a cinematic manifesto, a film that considers itself part of the “resistance” and tips its hat to the glory of the “radical”, has directly influenced the distorted right-wing opinion of the film. Sometimes the right and left seem to agree on what “OBAA” is: a romantic salute to revolution. They just didn't agree on what they were getting at.
But look, the word “revolution” is heavier than people think. Just like the “left”. They may just be words, but they helped create the lens through which One Battle After Another is viewed. As someone who enjoyed the film and found it to be a powerful statement, but doesn't consider it a “left-wing” vision, I decided to try to clarify why One Battle After Another should really avoid that label, no matter which side applies the label. Here's why.
The film borrows from the iconography of the “revolutionaries” of the late 60s and early 70s. But this world and the world of the film could not be more different. In the first part of the film, the underground rebels known as the “French 75” are characterized by references to the counterculture radicals of 55 years earlier. One of the most unforgettable images of the film is Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), wearing khakis, boots, an open plaid shirt and a wool cap, fires a machine gun balanced on her pregnant belly – an image like a Black Panther/Symbionese Liberation Army fever dream. The French 75 begin their insurgency (bombings, bank robberies, invading an immigration detention center to free prisoners) with a bravura of overthrowing the system that harkens back to those earlier times.
But here's the difference. The Black Panthers fought for civil rights, but by the late '60s and early '70s, many counterculture radicals had a stated goal of overthrowing, you know…America. At the time, the vast majority of Americans, including liberals, regarded this as an extreme and even crazy idea. By the time the Weather Underground emerged (whose greatest achievement was the accidental bombing of a Greenwich Village townhouse that killed three of its members), many of the era's radicals were beginning to be seen as not just extremist, but offensive.
So why does One Battle After Another pay homage to them? Because they had a militant impulse that struck a chord in the popular imagination. However, the two situations could hardly be more different. At the end of the 60s, there was no authoritarian regime in America. “One Battle After Another,” by contrast, takes place in a police state where police and military officers have joined forces to patrol an authoritarian society in which basic rights have been curtailed. What This is what 75 French people are rebelling against. Does this make them “leftist”? No, that makes them freedom fighters who are trying to break into a fascist nation again.
How could anyone think that the film starts in 2008? The timeline of One Battle After Another may seem a little confusing for a few reasons. The film is based on Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland, which is set in the Reagan 1980s; Anderson, looking ahead (the film was shot last year), turned the book into a dystopian projection of what a Trump regime might look like. But a lot of progressive critics and writers are obsessed with the idea that the film is about what happens right now, dudestated that the essence of the action takes place quite specifically in our days. This would mean that the first 45 minutes, which take place 16 years earlier (when 75 French people go crazy), would take place in 2008. But the vision of oppression that the film conjures has nothing to do with the atmosphere of 2008 (the beginning of the Obama era). And the strength of “OBAA” is that it is not a literal vision of today. This is a spiritual projection of where we might land.
The film's ragtag band of radicals is not glorified. On the contrary, they turned out to be deeply mistaken. I think this gets to the heart of why Paul Thomas Anderson made a film about radicals that is not itself an example of ardent “radicalism.” How imperfect are the French 75s? In many ways, the film's key character is Perfidia Beverly Hills, who is portrayed as a ruthless, charismatic rebel leader until she has a child (the secret father is Sean Penn's ramrod-tough Colonel Lockjaw), after which she becomes her lover and partner Bob Herbert (Leonardo DiCaprio), says: Now we are family. Our priorities must move away from revolution. Anderson, who has four children with Maya Rudolph, dramatizes the moment with noticeable conviction. This is the first thing that draws attention to DiCaprio's character as a morally complex being. But Perfidia has none of this. She is placed (by Lockjaw) in the Witness Protection Program and then races across the Mexican border, leaving the revolution—and, more importantly, her child—behind. The film doesn't respect that.
Cut to: 16 years later. The revolution is torn to shreds, and Bob is a drug addict sitting in a robe. He's still a devoted father in his own way, but he's also short-tempered, navel-gazing, and absent-minded. This is not a revolutionary we can exactly welcome. Moreover, the funniest joke in the film was misinterpreted by the progressive media. When Bob calls French 75 headquarters and keeps having trouble remembering the correct spy passphrase (the answer to the question “What time is it?”), many interpret this simply as a sign of how overcooked his brain is. But it wouldn't be a funny joke. DiCaprio's performance in this section – his overwhelming frustration that the cameraman won't give him a chance to remember the damn code – is superb and puts the audience on his side. The cameraman's bureaucratic fussiness is clearly intended as a satire of doctrinaire left-wing rigidity.
Attacks on “OBAA” for being “leftist” could be almost the opening salvo in the Oscar race. Speaking of battles, the Oscars are already looking like they're turning into a four-way war, with “One Battle at a Time” against “Hamnet” and “The Sinners” and “Marty Supreme” on the side. Attacks on OBAA on ideological grounds sound like something straight out of the anti-Green Book playbook. I don't think that's ultimately where this argument came from, but it can easily be exploited by opposing forces.
What is One Battle After Another really about? This is authoritarianism, stupid. If you look at the media coverage of this event, you might think that One Battle After Another is the story of the revolution. This is (sort of). But not really. For 45 minutes or so it looks like this. But the guerrilla uprising fails, and although Bob is helped by Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), leader of the underground railroad for immigrants, the revolution comes down to a father rescuing his daughter. It's emotionally powerful, but its portrayal of “resistance” is less powerful than the film's portrayal of authoritarianism itself and how directly it relates to what's happening in America today. The real revolution now taking place in this country is Christian nationalist revolution – an attempt to destroy the American dream and replace it with theocracy. And the film dares to make it public; his portrait of the Christmas adventurers is a chilling vision of hatred. That's all the film needs: that is happeningthat a right-wing revolution is underway. And that there are people in America who still want to stop this. To assume that to portray everything as “leftist” even if you think you are on that side is to play straight into propaganda. It means winning the battle of complacency and losing the war.
