I watched Digger and I was incredibly disappointed (Review)
Digger is the movie I have been somewhat looking forward to. It sounded very interesting from the premise, and how little it revealed about itself initially
The film is not bad. I think the approach of satirising the satire can work really well, but Digger is a film where I either really didnt connect with what it was doing, or it felt very obtuse. Its premise about the wealthy man, whose company had a pipeleak and explosion triggered a movement of a giant ice sheet, at first produced a very interesting result of a portrait of a very charismatic imo character, satirising america's worldview and american exceptionalism. Beyond that, you see the film become a meta exercise in looking behind the scenes of the film, and also satirising these types of satires.
Hot take I guess, but I kind of didnt find either of these narratives as compelling. The ending itself, is well done, and I thinkits more or less a summation film's themes and pointless liberalism in films of adam mckay like Dont Look Up, that all scream at the incomptetence of the establishment, without meaningful critique. Yet we kinda watch this type of film in Digger, and I cant help but feel like the film just becomes incomplete to me, and not very funny as a result perhaps? Like its very weird when you are kind of forced to watch something that film satirises for most of runtim and its a weird experience, that didnt work. I feel like I wasnt into the live action scenes outside of the film either, with the protaognists conflict with his daughter. It just didnt connect to me as much, and felt basically a rehash of birdman that was worse, because I wasnt feeling these scenes doing much for me. Maybe the plot twist itself didnt fully work, but I just didnt connect to that as much. And I love Birdman the most from Iñaríttu, and what Birdman did felt much more affecting but also very concise and very sharp to me.
I get what the ideas are, but I just dislike a lot of the execution. It kind of builds on one thing, without really making it work
The hottest take however I have on this movie is as follows: One of the other main issues with Digger, that came up with after I saw it was how its a film that is very abrasive, in a way where some reviews claim that its shitting on the type of inoffensive nothingburger Adam Mckay, Peter Farrely, and etc. types of films about social justices. I think Digger is way more cynical to me. I think the film kind of shits on the audience more directly, whereas in something like Birdman the conflict of Riggan with a critic was more a result of Riggan's personal ego and not Iñaríttu telling you 'critics suck'. The ending of the film is also very much raising the point of these films when no action is taken against people like DIgger Rockwell. And I like that ending, but I also just think that the films like the film within digger, and a film like dont look up arent made to make people revolt, and more or less know what they are. I think its largely a cynical view, because you can point to a lot of revolutionary, and documentary cinema that is better than digger but also doesnt mean that its release greatly impacts society or creates an uprising, or even the fact that people go home satisfied, isnt an implication that existence and purpose of the film is useless. I understand that maybe its an endign that comes from a point of cynicism, but its also silly to expect that films like Dont Look Up, or Big Short was intended for more than just entertainment, compared to Battle of Algiers, or even Soy Cuba. Both categories imho know what they are
Even on social media, Digger is more explicit about how critics opinion doesnt matter, and hot take, but it did make me dislike the film more, because I think its a very unnuanced position to have when people dislike your film, or dont get the point. Maybe the point wasnt communicated as clearly. Maybe there are reasons people dislike it. And its okay