Digger

i typically don’t love caricatures — i find comedy via that route to be rather boring. cool. you’re a big loud bumbling oaf. neat 👍 and using such a blunt instrument to make societal commentary usually results in blunt commentary. if you take a person and turn any of their qualities up to 100, then yeah they’re probably a strange person. that’s, like, uninteresting, in and of itself. it’s hard to pull nuance out of that space, unless your target audience is purely possessors of quality X so i abhor punch drunk love, and even though i enjoyed it, i think poor things’ ceiling rests around the “good not great” zone for the same reason. i just don’t love over-the-topness in my characters but MAN did i love digger. and i think it’s in great part due to its AWESOME structural gimmick, which lets the film confidently admit that its caricatures are, in fact, caricatures 🛑 please. turn back now if you haven’t seen. it’s worth a watch, for a hearty postgame discussion if nothing else just when we’ve seen enough of our bumbling, bloodthirsty capitalist, the fabric of the whole film rips. i was stunned for a full minute after that tree fell, trying to piece together what the hell this event implies about what came before, and what the hell possibilities it opens up for what’ll come next when we viewers can finally confidently state we’re watching actors perform a play in the far future — a revelation that oh so wonderfully takes its time (you really spend a good chunk of your foreground processing during this film trying to piece together what is even happening) — when you finally know the plot, the commentary gets to play both sides right before our eyes, the caricature becomes self aware, and it openly acknowleges the viewers’ barely established eye-rolls. we get to see a sincere take on environmental collapse through curtis’ relationship with his daughter. we get to feel the frustration in knowing the rockwell family fortune remains untouched, and the confusion at the idea that this commentary was only made possible with it. we get to tap back into the cartoon world to get lectured that we’re the problem, and we have to sit and ponder what level of truth lies behind that statement and it’s all obviously meta — we even see a director’s overt explanation for comedy’s use in explaining the unthinkable (heh) so yes, it’s hand holdy — certainly a very blunt instrument in its own right, and i’m sure this “stage in a stage” trick has been pulled many times before to direct the audience’s attention but i found it to very effectively capture the current political zeitgeist for me, it just worked and besides… the raw entertainment value? thrilling. the council room, digger’s speech, the shoe, the threat of violence. the nephew. the president. dr ganesh. china. russia. so many highlights the cinematography and set design is gorgeous. the dialogue is a joy to comb through. plus: the mystery of it all — getting to slowly piece together the world we’re looking at — really kept me on the edge of my seat and the ending… the ship lands perfectly. the 3rd and 4th walls come down abruptly, in a way that doesn’t feel jarring or forced at all. this is real ⚠️ Level 4 ⚠️ shoutout inarritu. this makes me want to watch everything else he’s ever done. and a tom cruise nom? it’s a lock from me if it holds up on rewatch, it’s a 10!