The best cinematic car chases are propulsive, staged to get your heart racing in tandem with the speeding vehicles. One Battle After Another has a few, but it’s the political thriller’s climactic sequence that shifts into a new gear of inventiveness and originality.
(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
Three intersecting plotlines—a man searching for his kidnapped daughter, a teenager fleeing her captors and a White supremacist tasked with eliminating all evidence of an interracial relationship—converge in a single file on the undulating hills of Texas Dip, in Borrego Springs, California.
The choice of setting is crucial—across the desert hills, it’s hard for drivers to see the road ahead of them until they’re right at the top, about to barrel down, a fitting metaphor for a movie that moves at breakneck speed, even as its characters don’t always know what’s around the bend.
As these drivers approach the hill’s crest, however, the rearview mirror begins reflecting only the sky, the road behind them receding until it disappears out of the frame, handicapping their line of sight yet again.
“If you put your phone on the dashboard of your car, you realize just how scary that point of view becomes—you’re driving 85 miler per hour and you can’t see what’s over that hill, nor can you see what’s behind you for most of the time,” said writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson in an interview. It’s a visceral experience, similarly evoked in the glorious 10-minute-long car chase across San Francisco’s hilly streets in Peter Yates’ thriller Bullitt (1968)
Anderson and cinematographer Michael Bauman induce the lurching sensation of a roller-coaster through teenager Willa Ferguson’s (Chase Infiniti) point of view from behind the wheel as she drives through the winding hills, occasionally cutting away to her in the car, and her worried eyes reflected in the rearview mirror. When another car appears behind hers, what viewers know—and she doesn’t—is that it’s being driven by secret society member Tim Smith (John Hoogenakker), hired to kill her. He’s already eliminated one such target, shooting him off the road with clinical efficiency.
The film drops us into Tim’s POV, replicating the vertiginous rollercoaster movement of Willa’s, only sped up considerably. He, after all, is in single-minded pursuit of her, gaining on her rapidly. As a wide shot depicts him closing in on her, another car joins in the chase, this one driven by Willa’s dad Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio). At this point, he doesn’t know who the other vehicles’ occupants are. He just wants to find his daughter, and his desperation contrasts against Tim’s grim determination and Willa’s fierce resolve.
Should Willa go too fast, she’ll fly right over the hill and crash. Too slow, however, and Tim will catch up to her. It’s only when she uses the unique topography to her advantage that she finally outwits her pursuer. She times it perfectly—slamming on the breaks right at the top of the hill, she gets out and quickly flees to the side of the road. She’s set Tim up for a crash, knowing he won’t be able to see the trap until it’s too late.
The film cuts from following right behind Tim’s speeding car to his POV as Willa’s vehicle abruptly looms up in front of him. The crash doesn’t kill him, but when he staggers out, he’s too dazed to reach for his gun immediately. This buys Willa enough time to confirm he doesn’t belong to her parents’ old band of revolutionaries—he fails her codewords test—and then she shoots him.
“Ocean waves, ocean waves,” repeats zen karate sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro) earlier in the film, attempting to soothe the high-strung Bob with this mantra. It’s Willa, however, who ends up faced with a tidal-like road formation before her, and is able to master her mounting fear. When Bob finally catches up to her, the adrenaline-fueled chase sequence ends on a cathartic note.
In One Battle After Another, what terrifies even an erstwhile-fearless revolutionary is the idea that he’s ill-equipped to protect his daughter against his past ghosts, and the cruelties of the modern world. By the end of the film, however, for all Bob’s been worrying about how to keep Willa safe, he now sees her self-preservation instincts firsthand. He doesn’t end up saving her from Tim, but because of the tools and training he’s equipped her with, she can save herself.
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