Illustration: Warner Bros. Pictures
There’s Only One Concrete Fact About In In One Battle AFTER ANOTHER — at some point, 16 years Pass between the film’s propulsive first and the rest. “Not Much Has Changed,” The Activist Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) us in voice-over after all time, but the world that her ex-partner Bob (Leonardo Dicaprio), Willa (Chase Infiniti), Occupy Feels Just Different. Theree’s “Mo bamba. ” There are nonbinary pronouns.
SINCE Its Release, Viewers have been arguing about the chronology of One Battle after Another. Although the Revolutionary Antics of the French 75 Resemble the CounterinSurgency Movements of the 1960s, the first Act of the film – in Which Perfidia Meets Bob, Falls in Love, Gets arrested, THEN BREAKS FREE AND GIVES TO WILLA DISAPPEARING ENTRUCTION swim set so far back. There are Ares Smartphones, for One, Visible ups Perfidia’s Arrest. Vineland, The Thomas Pynchon Novel Anderson Is Loosely Riffing On, Hinges on the Relationship BetWeen ’60s Revolutionaries and’ 80s Yuppies, But One Battle isn’t set in the 1980s, eather.
The film’s opening sequence of the French 75 freeing doses of migrants who have been detail at the border. That’s a relatively recentrice – emphasis on relatively. Theree are Migrants Detained at the Border as Typebut They were Also Being Detailed In 2014 During Obama’s Second Administration. If this first act is set is set back then, that was WOULD PLACE BOB’S TIME WILLA IN BAKTAN CROSS IN 2030. But Maybe Bob and Perfidia Met Later – During the Biden Administration Up to September 2025, the Month of the Film. One Battle AFTER ANOTHER in 2041. This seers to be the belief Among Viewerswho have keyed into production details like Sci-Fi-Ai Retrofurist Tech that Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn) use to test Willa’s DNA. But the Second You Think You’ve Maybe Anchored YourSelf in Time and Place, One Battle AFTER ANOTHER Again Throw a wrench with Its Fully Retro Car Selection. BOB SPENDS A Chunk of the Movie Driving A 1991 Nissan Sentra, and He and Other Ex-Revolutionaries Eschew Modern Smart PHONEs they can be tracked. All of these details of the characters-willa’s Friend Havinging a Yaris, a discontinue toyota model, is a fun shoes for what Had High-School Friends with Yarises-but not so Much, Literal Universe of the Universe One Battle AFTER ANOTHER. Anderson is a Character-Driven Director and SEEMS to have chosen these details for saying, not for the Movie’s Comerency.
In Watching One Battle AFTER ANOTHERI was reminded of another film that takes an ingenious approach to time: Christian Petzold’s in transitwhich is ostensibly “set” During the Second World War. While itle its protagonists look and feel and dress the part, the rest of petzold’s vision of fascist marseille is up-to-date: modern cars, modern appliances, modern weapons. Are we meant to assume his characters are ghosts? Is this a cost-cutting approach to a period Setting? The Effect is the Same, No Matter the Reason. The film Begins to transcend the notion of a World War II Movie to Become Something More Mysterious and Engaging. Similarly, One Battle AFTER ANOTHER Only Becomes more Compelling The More the Timeline Feels off. The French 75 COULD VEY WELL EXIST NOW, 16 YEARS AGO, or Some Time in The Future. Part of what Anderson Leaves the Viewer with the End of the Film is the Reasurance that Revolutionaries Keep Coming. No Matter the time, the place, or the model of iPhone, there’s always someone waiting in the wings reads up.