Dennis Biba

Shortly after The Life of Chuck, another Stephen King adaptation has now hit the cinemas, but at just the right time. Although King’s novel The Long Walk was published back in 1979, at a time when the Vietnam War was still raging, its theme has become relevant to European audiences once again. Director Francis Lawrence is known for his adaptation of Suzanne Collins‘ Hunger Games series, among other things, so it’s no surprise that he is now bringing a story to the screen that anticipates The Hunger Games in many ways.

However, in contrast to the sophisticated world-building of Panem, the scenario remains very vague: The United States in an unspecified future, which could just as easily be in the 20th century. The American political system, not exactly known for its progressive tendencies, has undergone an authoritarian shift, a war has been lost, and the economy is in ruins. The film remains silent about what exactly the political system in this dystopia looks like and how it relates to the rest of the world, thus unfortunately denying itself a deeper political perspective. Instead, everything there is to know is revealed through the characters‘ dialogues, and that is not exactly a lot. In order to ‘inspire’ the American people, strengthen national spirit, or distract them from their misery according to the Roman motto ‘bread and circuses/games,’ an annual competition was announced. Fifty young men (100 in the book) from across the United States compete against each other in a death march that only one can win. The march knows no breaks; anyone who rests or falls behind is shot. Significantly, it also has no destination, because it is only over when all but one of the candidates have died. The winner is promised fame, immeasurable riches and the fulfilment of a single wish – reason enough for many to volunteer for the march.

The fact that it is voluntary, which distinguishes The Long Walk from the Hunger Games, makes the scenario somewhat implausible, because even if impoverishment and a lack of prospects lead to desperate measures, the death march with a one or two per cent chance of survival, physical torment and the loss of all dignity is hardly the only way out of misery (as is suggested). But one should not make the mistake of seeing The Long Walk as a realistic dystopia, but rather as a metaphor that points to the present. It so happens that in 2025, military debates are being held that are very similar to those at the time the novel was written. Once again, tensions between the superpowers threaten to ignite a new world war, and once again, questions of national security are being translated into an arms race. But when the defence capabilities of a nation (=any nation) are invoked, willing people must also be found who are prepared to risk their lives for the state. Voluntariness also plays a role in the debates on military service that are currently being held in Germany after a long period of peace. However, proponents of a renewed conscription see this as an obstacle and critics fear that the state would force them to take up arms in an emergency anyway.

Applied to the topic of compulsory military service, which, incidentally, only affects young men in both Germany and Austria, The Long Walk impressively illustrates how the male body becomes the property of the state in a patriarchal society. In the past, feminist theorists have extensively examined how the female body has been (and continues to be) tabooed, stigmatised, sexualised, objectified and exploited in a patriarchal society (from Simone de Beauvoir to Julia Kristeva and Judith Butler etc.). It has also been analysed many times that the exploiters are by no means only violent, male individuals, but that there is also systemic violence behind the oppression of women, as expressed, for example, in biopolitical measures (see Sandra Bartky or Susan Bordo).

The long exclusion of women from the military was justified by their household duties and the need to bear children for the state. Liberal feminism has fought for women’s right to partially free themselves from this role, as well as the dubious privilege of serving alongside men in the military, although conscription only applies to men in cases of doubt – ironically, when it comes to a decision that is vital for survival, patriarchal power protects those who otherwise suffer most from it.

The male body, on the other hand, which is largely protected from abuse in peacetime thanks to its privileges, becomes a raw material in wartime that the state can freely dispose of (see, for example, Judith Butler’s later works). Since there are enough young men with no prospects who are looking for a way out of poverty, direct coercion is not always necessary to fill the ranks of recruits. Here, once again, we see the principle of multiple discrimination at work, as a large proportion of recruits come from poor and migrant groups. What seems implausible in the film due to its exaggeration is not uncommon in reality. Drill, surveillance, corporal punishment and sleep deprivation (also a popular method of torture) shape and discipline the male body. Weakness and compassion are punished. Total control over the body is expressed in the film, as in Stephen King’s usual very haptic style, in the men’s bodily excretions, as they are denied rest and privacy during the five-day hike and thus robbed of all dignity in front of a gawking audience.

With its highly reduced narrative style, the film highlights that aspect of state control over its citizens which Michel Foucault, in The Will to Knowledge, called anatomical politics (in addition to biopolitics): politics that does not concern the population as a whole, but aims to discipline the individual body. The fact that the dystopian state is an authoritarian one is reflected in the drastic nature of its disciplinary measures; on the other hand, an anarchist critique would classify states per se as authoritarian.

Does this make The Long Walk an anti-militaristic or even feminist film? It is impossible to answer this question with any certainty, because even though the ending impressively shows how violence continues to reproduce itself, the film cannot avoid a certain voyeurism, which is directed in particular at David Jonsson, who shines as the deuteragonist. While in a game designed entirely for competition, the cooperative behaviour of the main characters initially suggests a utopian alternative, it also echoes the bellicose ideal of male camaraderie, which is not deconstructed here, but glorified. Furthermore, the film almost completely lacks any perspective on possible resistance against the system as their common enemy. Except for a suicidal attempt by the indigenous Collie Parker, the camaraderie does not lead to an alliance and thus remains in the sphere of the apolitical. Perhaps this is precisely why the film leaves its audience paralysed rather than outraged.

Francis Lawrence (2025): The long walk [Film]. USA.