{"id":6353,"date":"2026-03-17T17:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T17:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/6353\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T17:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T17:38:13","slug":"what-one-battle-after-another-doesnt-get-about-resistance-in-trumps-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/6353\/","title":{"rendered":"What ‘One Battle After Another” doesn’t get about resistance in Trump’s America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The cheers were loud and long at the 98th Academy Awards after \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d won best picture<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It was a great night for the Paul Thomas Anderson-directed film, which nabbed six Oscars for its depiction of California revolutionaries taking on a white supremacist federal government hell-bent on deporting undocumented immigrants and crushing dissent.<\/p>\n

Wait, isn\u2019t that what CNN airs every night<\/a>?<\/p>\n

The 2.5-hour-plus film didn\u2019t do well at the U.S. box office, not even earning back its estimated $130-million budget. But it sparked dozens of thought pieces that kept it in the national conversation long after it left the theaters. Conservatives decried the action-comedy for supposedly glamorizing armed resistance; progressives hailed its ripped-from-the-headlines \u00e9lan.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s supposed to be a movie that Means Something. But Anderson, who won his first best director Oscar for \u201cOne Battle,\u201d has maintained in interviews that people should regard it less as a reflection of our times and more as a commentary on the eternal struggle of American democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are articles in the L.A. Times from 100 years ago showing this kind of stuff,\u201d he told my colleague Glenn Whipp<\/a> in September. \u201cThe selfish part is for us to think, \u2018Boy, look at what\u2019s happening. I\u2019ve never seen this before.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what makes \u201cOne Battle\u201d far less weighty than critics and supporters alike have characterized it as being. In his attempt to make a comedy of errors about an era of terror, Anderson missed the forest for the trees about resistance in Trump\u2019s America. His critiques and conclusions are as edgy as a soap bubble.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot to like about \u201cOne Battle\u201d \u2014 the tense score, the taut cinematography, the superb casting highlighted by best supporting actor winner Sean Penn<\/a>, whose portrayal of the film\u2019s villain bears such an uncanny resemblance to former Border Patrol commander at large Gregory Bovino that the disgraced migra man should ask for a consulting producer credit. <\/p>\n

In an industry that still often sees Latinos as the help, spicy se\u00f1oritas<\/a>, cartel members or extraterrestrials<\/a>, I especially appreciated the Latino nuances<\/a> in \u201cOne Battle,\u201d from lingo like carnalito (little buddy) and chota (police) to Leonardo DiCaprio whistling at a group of Mexicans in a pivotal scene, just like I do when I\u2019m trying to get a cousin\u2019s attention at a family picnic.<\/p>\n

I wish there was more of that real-life feel. Ultimately, Latinos are reduced to side characters, save for Benicio del Toro\u2019s sardonic karate sensei. Anderson\u2019s big mistake is arguing, based on the political struggle at the heart of \u201cOne Battle,\u201d that uprisings from the left never truly succeed.<\/p>\n

\"Leonardo <\/p>\n

Leonardo DiCaprio, left, as Bob Ferguson and Benicio del Toro as Sergio St. Carlos in \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d <\/p>\n

(Warner Bros. Pictures)<\/p>\n

As the title implies, \u201cOne Battle\u201d imagines an America where little improves, no matter how much people fight tyranny. It focuses on a group called the French 75, who kick things off by liberating an immigration detention camp at the U.S.-Mexico border. Then, they commit a string of bombings and robberies in their Los Angeles home base. Fast forward 16 years, and members are in hiding in a sanctuary city in the forests of Northern California while life goes on for everyone else in the form of proms and getting stoned.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne Battle\u201d is based on the 1990 Thomas Pynchon novel \u201cVineland,\u201d<\/a> with Anderson swapping President Reagan\u2019s war on drugs for President Trump\u2019s deportation deluge while keeping the author\u2019s send-up of burnt-out wokosos. <\/p>\n

The director scores easy laughs off of modern-day progressive shibboleths such as gender-fluid pronouns<\/a>, trigger warnings and Native American land acknowledgments<\/a>. He depicts conservatives, on the other hand, as one-note evil and whiter than a blizzard \u2014 a typical Hollywood take that doesn\u2019t allow for people of color ever siding with MAGA, even as Latinos voted for Trump in record numbers in 2024<\/a>, the secretary of State is Cuban American Marco Rubio<\/a> and the FBI director is Indian American Kash Patel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the left, Anderson trots out stock characters \u2014 the oversexed Black woman revolutionary, Leo\u2019s cuckolded white stoner, doctrinaire newcomers \u2014 from a Bob Hope skit about hippies. He argues that the right succeeds because it\u2019s disciplined, while the left devolves into chaos by relying on imperfect leaders. \u201cEvery revolution begins fighting demons, but motherf\u2014 end up fighting themselves,\u201d says the French 75\u2019s firebrand leader, Perfidia Beverly Hills<\/a>, whose every curve Anderson\u2019s camera creepily obsesses over. <\/p>\n

Her comment is too often true. But if Trump\u2019s second term has shown us anything, it\u2019s that everyone is a revolutionary now \u2014 and no one looks to figureheads to lead the way.<\/p>\n

Trump supporters are calling out his excesses<\/a>, while suburban moms join ICE Watch groups. Activism isn\u2019t just about wielding guns and throwing rocks but organizing online, in the classrooms and among households. Latinos aren\u2019t just running underground railroads for undocumented immigrants, as shown in the movie \u2014 they\u2019re voting out Republicans and calling out Trump in the halls of Congress<\/a>. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s going on right now in this country disproves what \u201cOne Battle\u201d posits: that the only way to push back against an authoritarian regime is to mimic far-left militants of the 1970s like the Weather Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army. <\/p>\n

\u201cRevolutionary violence is the only way. Don\u2019t tell me to vote. Don\u2019t tell me we shall overcome,\u201d Perfidia also says. The daughter she had with Di Caprio\u2019s character signs up for that ideology at the end of the movie, as Tom Petty\u2019s \u201cAmerican Girl\u201d and Gil Scott-Heron\u2019s \u201cThe Revolution Will Not Be Televised\u201d play over the credits. Trump wants Americans to believe that his opponents are of this ilk, with his lackeys casting activists as domestic terrorists for merely showing up to protests. <\/p>\n

But at the dozens of protests, meetings and get-togethers I\u2019ve attended since the start of Trump\u2019s reign, organizers have forcefully decried actual violence, because it ultimately doesn\u2019t work. The other side will always have bigger weapons and more resources.<\/p>\n

Instead, a persistent but peaceful \u2014 and loud \u2014 approach has been so effective at opposing Trump\u2019s evils that he has told Republican Party leaders to downplay the xenophobic rhetoric<\/a> until at least after the midterms.<\/p>\n

\"Chase <\/p>\n

Chase Infiniti, left, as Willa Ferguson and Regina Hall as Deandra in \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d <\/p>\n

(Warner Bros. Pictures)<\/p>\n

To reduce people who confront fascism to bloodthirsty cartoons begs the question: Is Anderson truly clueless about today, or is he just trying to satirize it? Either he needs to talk to folks who are out there every day protecting immigrants, or he\u2019s far more conservative than I thought \u2014 and then again, most Hollywood types tend to be.<\/p>\n

The San Fernando Valley native is a brilliant director who has made sprawling, messy epics about imperfect people synonymous with his name, like John Ford with Westerns or A24 with art house flicks. He\u2019s especially great at documenting his native land, from the porn epic \u201cBoogie Nights\u201d to \u201cLicorice Pizza,\u201d a cinematic love letter to the Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne Battle\u201d doesn\u2019t belong in the same conversation as those masterpieces. The film it beat out for best picture, the Ryan Coogler-directed \u201cSinners,<\/a>\u201d is far more damning of our racist society, more critical of the human flaws that get in the way of progress \u2014 and far more enjoyable and original. Compared to it, \u201cOne Battle\u201d comes off as a modern-day \u201cCrash,\u201d the 2006 film widely considered one of the worst ever<\/a> best picture winners for its tone-deaf take on race relations in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n

Anderson\u2019s film is nowhere near as bad, but it\u2019s as deluded about reality and self-important about its perspective as \u201cCrash\u201d was. The revolution isn\u2019t just televised \u2014 it\u2019s here. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cheers were loud and long at the 98th Academy Awards after \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d won best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[4283,5212,5211,5218,3300,5217,8,5214,5215,5116,9,415,5213,4999,7,1071,5216,3211],"class_list":["post-6353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-america","tag-anderson","tag-battle","tag-conservative","tag-film","tag-forest","tag-headlines","tag-latinos","tag-left","tag-movie","tag-news","tag-people","tag-resistance","tag-revolution","tag-top-stories","tag-trump","tag-undocumented-immigrant","tag-way"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116245738477062611","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}