There’s a prevailing dissenting thought for producer Kathryn Bigelow’s latest political thriller, A House of Dynamite. Allegedly, this fictionalized scenario of American government officials navigating a potential crisis in the wake of a nuclear missile launched by an unnamed enemy is “propaganda.” That is, propaganda in how it allegedly glorifies the United States military, while distilling the conflict, presented through three unique perspectives – in the eyes of Situation Room officer Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferugson), Deputy NSA Advisor Jake Baerington (Gabriel Basso) and the President of the United States (Idris Elba) – as the country’s “unsung heroes” who determine how to respond to an event of this magnitude.
Anyone calling this total rebuke of what America stands for – as a country, and military institution – “propaganda” should get their heads examined. The movie may not be perfect; structural issues prevent it from hammering Bigelow and screenwriter and producer Noah Oppenheim’s message home in a more emotionally powerful way than it should, but “reheated propaganda” couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, throughout her tense 112-minute runtime, Bigelow criticizes the very institutions that should theoretically protect their population from any known (or unknown) entity wanting to target countries for any malevolent intentions.
Kathryn Bigelow’s Rhetorical Lens on America
Specific segments can fall in the “propaganda” category – i.e., the caricatural representation of potential antagonists as Baerington attempts to diffuse the situation before the President makes any irrational decision. However, if you pay close enough attention, then you’ll see how much Bigelow holds the systems that protect the population in utter contempt. For instance, why do some federal officers get special treatment to be sent inside a protected bunker, while other employees – and their families – are left to fend for themselves? Why does the President not care about the human cost that this potential war could bring as he wrestles with figuring out how many innocents will die under the guise of “retaliation” or, worse, “protecting America”?
Bigelow doesn’t directly ask these questions to the audience. She’s a smart enough filmmaker to slightly infer them to us as she dismantles the very ideals of “American exceptionalism” inside this tripartite pressure-cooker. Many will lament how A House of Dynamite somehow doesn’t have an ending or character development, but that’s completely besides the point. Anyone who watches films for “character growth” is watching them the wrong way. “Character growth” is for television. Thinking is for cinema. And in A House of Dynamite, Bigelow’s docudrama approach—which she employed through great effect in Zero Dark Thirty and, most recently, Detroit—becomes the beating heart and soul of this “what if” that never glorifies the characters’ actions, but begins to excavate them one by one and imagine the terrifying implications of a group of power-hungry, gun and missile-loving idiots thinking of retaliating in the name of “keeping America safe.”
A Portrait of the United States
Here’s a clear example: what does the NSA’s North Korea expert, Ana Park (Greta Lee), do on her day off with her son? And what does this scene – and this behavior – imply? More importantly, what does the event she is attending represent for America as a whole? As a country with a dark history based on colonialism, slavery, and the dehumanization of minorities?
“Hitting a bullet with a bullet” appears on the screen while an actor, playing a soldier in the 150th recreation of the Gettysburg battle, totes his gun and readies to fight fire with fire. This scene alone, brief and unimportant in the context of the broader picture, tells us everything we need to know about America and its jingoistic figures leading it. They don’t care about you – or anyone else – but themselves, and would rather destroy all of its foundations to keep their “Second Amendment rights” than protect them.
That alone is damning enough, but Bigelow takes it one step further by framing the last part of her movie through the President’s perspective. Officials can only go so far because their power does not extend through the Commander-in-Chief. The President, on the other hand, has all the powers in his possession to make decisions that could alter the course of the country forever. After all, all they need to do is push one button, and the world will never be the same again…
Figures at the Top
Of course, Elba’s version of a head of state (his second this year, after portraying the U.K. Prime Minister in…Ilya Naishuller’s Heads of State) is completely fictionalized and unrelated to any figure, past or present. However, the war crimes — and the guilt of being cogs in the war-hungry machine — carried out by past administrations are still very much alive. This is all depicted through director of photography Barry Ackroyd’s staggering cinematography, examining Elba’s President not as a moral figure being tested, but as someone who lacks the capabilities to attain peace and protect his people. He can defend himself, and he will. However, everyone else will have to fend for themselves.
The same can be said for multiple figures that populate the picture, from Secretary of Defense Reid Baker (Jared Harris), who would rather tee up than actively perform his solemn duty, leading him to ponder the consequences of his actions when the oncoming missile attack may directly impact his daughter (Kaitlyn Dever). The same thing occurs when Bigelow cuts to the military, which tries to stop the missile from entering U.S. soil. There’s no glorification here. The fascist (not my words, but Bigelow strongly implies this, and she would be correct) army is a failed entity just as much as the U.S. government is. Everyone else is a synecdoche of a system that doesn’t care about its people, nor about everyone else in the world. America is a self-centered, broken country whose thirst for power and vengeance seeps through in every instance of government.
Final Thoughts on Kathryn Bigelow and Noah Oppenheim’s A House of Dynamite
Bigelow smartly exposes specific truths in a movie that, yes, could have used more breathing room, but the message is still heard loud and clear. A House of Dynamite is an intelligent, important thriller that dares to expose the fallacies of gubernatorial negligence at a time when even less intelligent people are handling the country. Bigelow proves once again why she’s a force to be reckoned with whose political films are continuously misread as “propaganda,” which, if you don’t pay attention, maybe you’ll think so. However, if you stop for one second and think about the images being shown, all littered with incredible amounts of significance and political urgency, then the only thing left are your biases that could affect your perception of the movie. If you leave them out the window, then perhaps you’ll learn something for a change.
Kathryn Bigelow and Noah Oppenheim’s A House of Dynamite streams globally via Netflix on October 24th!
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