Warfare Co-Director Alex Garland Describes How The Film Is Based On Memory

If acclaimed writer/director Alex Garland is going to make a war movie these days, you can safely bet that it’ll turn out to be one of the most intense and visceral experiences of the year. He accomplished exactly that with last year’s “Civil War,” A24’s terrifying drama starring Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny, and he’s now set to go two for two with 2025’s upcoming “Warfare.” Co-directed and co-written by Iraq War combat veteran Ray Mendoza, this film’s unique twist isn’t that it’s based on some original concept of a war-torn United States that only feels slightly more heightened than our present one — instead, it has been marketed heavily as a largely one-location thriller taken straight out of the memories of various individuals involved in this very real mission gone horribly awry back in 2006.

Ahead of release later this month, A24 hosted a special screening for “Warfare” followed by a Q&A with the creative team. Also in attendance was /Film’s Bill Bria, who led the charge of early reactions on social media by describing the movie as one that “blends some of the expected war movie elements — tension, brutality, blood — with some daring ones, namely the depiction of the sheer mundanity of war (until, of course, that shifts). Both spare and unsparing, Garland & Mendoza capture a compelling memory of war here.” Fandango’s Erik Davis also chimed in on X (formerly Twitter), calling it “definitely the most intense film I’ve watched this year” and “[incredibly] immersive in its approach.” Critic Simon Thompson added to the hype, praising it as “an honest, harrowing, intense and powerful piece.”

During the post-screening segment, both Garland and Mendoza led an in-depth discussion of “Warfare” and talked about the origins of the story. According to Garland, “[The movie] was based on memory. We had a handful of photographs that we got hold of of the building [that the movie takes place in]. But aside from that, it was just interviews, and it began with Ray and I sitting for a week and Ray just unloading everything he could remember. And then we spoke to as many people as we could.”

This is hardly the first time Alex Garland has used the hazy and oftentimes contradictory feelings of memory to craft a killer feature. His 2018 horror flick “Annihilation” was ostensibly an adaptation of the book of the same name, but the filmmaker famously chose not to reread the novel at all during production and simply allowed himself to be guided by his recollections of the dreamlike tone of the story. (Don’t worry, author Jeff VanderMeer loved what Garland did with the movie.) It appears Garland was up to similar tricks on “Warfare,” as he further explained during the Q&A:

“It says the film is based on memory because memory is a complicated thing. It is not like video, it is not like photographs. It’s hugely affected by actually just by time passing. But it’s also affected by stress and it’s affected by trauma and it’s affected by concussion. So there are many, many layers of reasons why memory was complex to work with, but was also all we had.”

However, he found that his approach this time around led to some surprising discoveries along the way. Garland recalled an anecdote during filming of one particular sequence of “Warfare.” While searching for a temporary headquarters to hole up in, the troops we’re following in the movie decide on a two-story building that would best suit their needs. But while clearing the building (and waking up a terrified Iraqi family living there), the soldiers encounter a bizarre discovery: a staircase ending with a solid brick wall upstairs, separating the upstairs unit from the downstairs one and necessitating a sledgehammer to break through (which the actor, Taylor John Smith, actually had to do by hand).

According to Garland, a photo taken inside the actual building after the raid indicated that this wall was actually there, but the majority of the actual soldiers they interviewed had zero memory whatsoever of this … to the point that he almost didn’t include this aspect in the film at all. Only a late conversation with a knowledgeable source identified only as Joe convinced Garland that this was the truth amid a fog of discrepancies.

Though this was only one extremely minor example of how memory tends to play tricks on humans, even setting aside the adrenaline and trauma and threat of harm inherent in any combat situation, Alex Garland found this to be the most rewarding method to construct the plot of “Warfare.” He, co-director/co-writer Ray Mendoza, and the rest of the creative team accepted that this would inevitably mean picking and choosing certain narratives of that fateful day to figure out what to actually depict in the film. Historical accuracy was paramount, but only within reason. Garland went on to acknowledge this very same idea:

“I want to say this: If for some reason someone had stuck GoPros all over this house and this appalling incident had been recorded, it would not be exactly the same as this. There would be discrepancies because that is in the nature of memory. We knew that. We knew we couldn’t get it a hundred percent correct, but what we could be as faithful to as possible the memory. So that was the way we approached it. That was our forensic approach.”

Based on the stunned silence of the crowd as the credits rolled in my own recent press screening of the film, the final result may go down as one of the most unforgettable viewing experiences you’ll ever have this year. A24 has committed to a widespread IMAX release for “Warfare” and, trust me, moviegoers will want to take advantage of the format. “Warfare” explodes into theaters April 11, 2025.