Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s new film “Warfare” was released in theaters nationwide on Friday. The A24 feature visually narrates Mendoza’s time serving in the Iraq war, focusing specifically on a particular mission where their platoon gets attacked. Garland and Mendoza sat down with The Daily Texan to discuss their new film.
The Daily Texan: What advice would you give to your 21-year-old self?
Ray Mendoza: Strap in, your knees are gonna hurt in about 20 years. … Make the decisions that you’re gonna make. Do make decisions that you’re going to make, which is usually with your heart. You’re gonna go through a lot of pain and growth. Just be prepared.
Alex Garland: My (advice for my) 21-year-old self (is) unrepeatable.
DT: What kind of challenges did y’all face during production, and how did you overcome them?
AG: We had the opposite of challenges. What we had was solutions to problems. We got to work with a super-experienced crew. We had a lot of space to construct an entire street and make a set that was more like a location than a set in filming times. The only real concern I had … was that the weather in the United Kingdom is uncertain; and it might start pouring with rain, or it might be bright and sunny. With film, that creates a continuity problem.
DT: In a previous Q&A session, Alex mentioned that A24 “understood what its role was and what it was not” in regard to “Warfare.” Could you elaborate on that?
AG: We said, “This is the film we want to make, and we will make it as cheaply as possible.” And they said, “Go for it.” … The people that give you millions and millions of dollars want a say in elements of it. They want to know who’s being cast. Does this scene hurt the movie? Does it help the movie? What A24 was required to do is to not do our normal thing of introducing ideas into a story or saying, “Couldn’t this be quicker? Couldn’t this be funnier? Couldn’t this be sadder?” And trusting what would result from an accurate retelling of the sequence of events.
DT: How has A24’s willingness to take on risk set them apart from other distributors?
AG: I wouldn’t say they’re the only ones because that would be impolite to some of the other people out there who are also taking risks. I would say that A24 has set the gold standard in many respects. … In the old days, we all used to say, we wish there was someone like A24. … Somebody who was prepared to take those kinds of risks. We felt if only studios would be flexible and more risk-taking, more inventive, there would be an audience there and then A24 just came along and proved it was true.
