Digger (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2026)

[thirtyframesasecond]

Was Bardo any good? Looking back at Inarritu's career, I'm not sure I truly like any of these films (Birdman, especially - but even the earlier films like 21 Grams and Babel but at least they had Arriaga's scripts).

[Matt]

Was Bardo any good?

See the dedicated thread

[thirtyframesasecond]

Was Bardo any good?

See the dedicated thread

Thanks. Hit and miss then. Having now read the reveal of Digger, maybe these two films and Birdman share the sense of one man's existential crisis in common. Have to say it's a brave big swing of a film but it is going to lose a hell of a lot of money and Inarritu probably won't get a large scale personal film again and Cruise may just rethink doing anything more experimental again.

[Mr Sausage]

Yep, the movie's no good. Both critics and supporters seem to agree the movie's a wild, ambitious, swing-for-the-fences kind of creative risk, and disagree only on how well it lands. And I can't agree with either side: all the wild ambitious creative stuff felt pro forma to me. The thing's a fake, an attempt to mimic a huge risk-taking auteurist mess rather than the genuine thing. Which is why the movie felt so lifeless, why the hooting and grotesquerie was leaden: there's no conviction here, except to embody someone else's idea of a of a bold individualist movie. The whole thing feels like it's surrounded by quotation marks, and not just because much of the plot is literally surrounded by quotation marks. The bifurcated structure in and of itself felt like "big creative gamble" was branded across it rather than seeming like an actual creative gamble. It felt conventional, actually, just lifted from the conventions of the experimentalist mess. All of its themes and satire, from capitalism and climate change to family and the nature of art are just so rote, so trendy for a movie like this. So much here is impersonal and sententious. There's no real passion or anger radiating through, just posturing and calculation. Even the parts that are successfully meaningful carry no personal weight. A cobbled together mimicry of Art (with a built in defense mechanism to forestall that accusation!)

That's the only real annoying thing, that built-in defense mechanism the film grants itself to evade criticism. Ugly and unfunny? Laboured and vague? Poorly stitched out of received ideas? Well it's supposed to be! Nevermind of course that you have to spend 70% of your time watching something ugly and unfunny, etc. And that these criticisms apply to all the material that isn't covered by the defense mechanism. Beyond that, the movie sat dead on the screen for me and I felt nothing except slight boredom. To be passionately against the movie, I'd need to feel like it was trying to really do something, and it's not. Its only ambition is to seem like it is. The movie allows itself only one authentic emotion, a muted despair, and then only briefly and limply before fizzling. We've all given up and are going through the motions, the movie says...and so I guess have the creative team behind this message, to judge by the final product.

Spoiler

One of the satirical barbs here isn't bad: even after these ghoulish powerful men have destroyed the world and ruined everyone's lives, their families not only continue to be rich and privileged, but can fund the very art that lampoons them (degrading the worth of that art), knowing it won't harm them, and then get hugs and affection at the end for throwing around a bit of money even tho' the whole situation with the daughter only existed in the first place because of the Rockwell family's greed and corruption. The audience shouts and cries, gets their bread and circus or their two-minutes hate or whatever, and then proceeds back out into the nightmarish totalitarian world they inhabit, while the Rockwell family carries on just fine. A bleak and toxic point. Also a dead obvious one. It'd be very easy to overpraise this kind of thudding satirical point. But it's at least a point.

[Michael Kerpan]

Mr S -- You make this movie sound sort of like how I felt about (my once upon a time loved) BONG Joon-ho's Parasite.

[Mr Sausage]

Hah! I liked Parasite! But I also stopped thinking about it the moment I left the theatre and have kinda forgotten it exists. But I’ll say this: if it is a fake, it’s one Bong wished people to think was successful, while Digger felt like it was supposed to come across as a grand artistic failure from the start. As if that’s what Inarritu felt like a serious, authentic artist would do, make a bloated movie of ideas that fails spectacularly but shows the artist’s uncompromising creative originality. Even the movie’s poisonous view of art in the modern world felt like posturing meant paradoxically to bolster Inarritu’s status as an artist.

[swo17]

It doesn't look like anyone's mentioned what I thought might have been the film's most effective moment. I wonder if some people missed it because it happens during the end credits:

Spoiler

The film of course gradually reveals that the audience of Fossil Fools is delighting in a night of mediocre entertainment as a bit of escapism from the dystopia outside. It doesn't matter that the entertainment is in fact about that dystopia, because nothing matters. Then the mask announcement blares and the audience starts to leave the theater, just as we the audience of Digger are about to do the same. As the credits began to roll, I observed the parallel and lightly chuckled to myself. But then a minute later the song abruptly drops out and we get our own mask announcement before the soundtrack devolves into animal noises. Suddenly I kind of didn't even want to go back out into the world. On paper this was a cheeky punchline, but the execution was very sobering

[Noiretirc]

Well, to be fair, hardly anyone has gone to see it.

[swo17]

Sorry, fixed:

I wonder if some people missed it because it happens during the movie

[colinr0380]

Spoiler

I wonder if that may play into the idea that the actors get to remain somewhat insulated within their theatrical bubble space (at least to a certain extent) during times of crisis, even whilst the audiences they play to get only a temporary solace from knowing they were right all along, even if they still have to inhabit an apocalyptic wasteland? That could potentially play out in all sorts of ways as either a condemnation of the power of cultural artifacts to change the outside world, whilst pretending to have that influence; the power of revisionism of those holding the reins of culture; and whether it is worth being able to smugly look back with hindsight and say "I told you so!" when nothing is left to fight over?

Without having seen it as yet, it all sounds rather like The Bed Sitting Room mixed with the elite co-opting of culture of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover!

Also, once it is not so much of a spoiler to do so, it might be interesting to do a thread in the "Other Lists" area of what films have their end credits play out over a reverse shot of the audience in theatre filing out of the play/movie we have been seeing? The main one that comes to mind is the ending of Portraits Chinois!

[erok910]

Spoiler

I wonder if that may play into the idea that the actors get to remain somewhat insulated within their theatrical bubble space (at least to a certain extent) during times of crisis, even whilst the audiences they play to get only a temporary solace from knowing they were right all along, even if they still have to inhabit an apocalyptic wasteland? That could potentially play out in all sorts of ways as either a condemnation of the power of cultural artifacts to change the outside world, whilst pretending to have that influence; the power of revisionism of those holding the reins of culture; and whether it is worth being able to smugly look back with hindsight and say "I told you so!" when nothing is left to fight over?

Without having seen it as yet, it all sounds rather like The Bed Sitting Room mixed with the elite co-opting of culture of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover!

Also, once it is not so much of a spoiler to do so, it might be interesting to do a thread in the "Other Lists" area of what films have their end credits play out over a reverse shot of the audience in theatre filing out of the play/movie we have been seeing? The main one that comes to mind is the ending of Portraits Chinois!

I dont want to sound harsh by any means. Ive watched it twice, and honestly: I dont love it. But i really think you ought to see it before theorizing in that way. It isnt my kind of thing, I did not get there with it. But the idea of seeking out themes and making assumptions without knowing the context seems really strange to me. I hope you see it and come back with thoughts on it. I found the post with spoiler tags sort of scary in a way.

I enjoy the discourse, but I just dont understand. Again, not trying to be harsh. Enjoying the discussion. But i dont understand assumptions or comparisons to other things based on what you read in spoiler filled reviews. Maybe I missed a previous post. If so, i apologize. Just my thought. When i have more time i look forward to coming back with thoughts on it.

[colinr0380]

That's understandable erok910. I was more just throwing some random thoughts out there in these last couple of posts.

[Noiretirc]

Well I'm sorry but I enjoyed colinr0380 thoughts and I don't see what is "scary".

But whatever.

[j99]

Well I'm sorry but I enjoyed colinr0380 thoughts and I don't see what is "scary".

But whatever.

So did I, and think colinr0380 is one of the best contributors on this forum.

[erok910]

Im not disputing his value as a contributor on the forums, and im not going to get into a fight with anyone here by any means.

But to explain: seeing a spoiler tagged comment with a large portion of it theorizing what the film was getting at, only to realize the post is purely conjecture- it was a bit confusing to me is all. Im not saying the post cant exist, it confused me. And also reminds me of how common people judge a subject based on other peoples opinions from the internet instead of their own reading. To each their own, not trying to bother anyone on the forum either.

[Matt]

Discussion on rewatching/rereading moved here

[colinr0380]

I do think that pre-release interest in a film and speculation about its contents is a perfectly valid reaction for anyone to have. I mean, none of us have been able to escape the discourse around this film for the last couple of weeks surrounding its reported contents and qualities. So people are going to have thoughts about the film from what they have heard, and then hopefully will see how that speculation will measure up to the reality of the film once they see it. I think the big mistake I made there, and agree with erok910 about, is that I did not highlight my post as speculation outside of the spoiler tag so that people only wanting to hear post-viewing reactions would not have to click into it when they were wanting to hear more from those posters above who had actually already seen the film.

But I would suggest that one thing this shows is that everything I have heard about Digger since its release has interested me enough in an Iñárritu film for the first time in decades to do some over-excitable speculation about its contents, as compared to having little interest in things like Revenant or Birdman (though it sounds as if Digger is in the meta tradition of Birdman?). So that could be a positive? Although that in no way would translate to how successful or not it could be as a film - after all, I am fascinated by Southland Tales too!

[Murdoch]

Well, I liked it.

It does hammer the audience over the head like a mallet and I was completely ready to write it off.

Spoiler

But the reveal midway through of the preceding theatrics of Cruise and company being an over-the-top decades-old stage play really worked for me. The Strangelove cribbing is borderline plagiarism at points, but for me the entire film works when I think of it as Sausage articulates in his spoilerbox above. Digger's nephew is positioned as a kind of savior within the film - putting on a play that lampoons his uncle, saving Cruise's daughter from oblivion. But behind those heroics is the point Iñárritu intends: the nephew is the one making the narrative, using the fool his uncle is portrayed as in the history books to appease those struggling while he enjoys his luxurious anonymity, still maintaining such a large degree of wealth while the world at large lives in squalor. His existence doesn't seem to have been materially affected by the collapse of the world order, which is the most ridiculous yet realistic aspect of the film - the rich only get richer. Not a novel idea at all but I liked how Iñárritu sets it up.

[OstrichRidingCowboy]

It's a satire on the people who liked Urinetown; does that make sense?

[wattsup32]

Digger is outstanding and easily one of my favorite films of the year. It is exquisitely lit and shot with lovingly manufactured "natural" light. The sets were meticulously detailed and found ways to continuously provide insight about the characters, which is important because

Spoiler

almost everyone we see on screen is both an actor in a play within the movie and a character in the play.

Unlike most modern film scores, this one is additive instead of distracting. And, the sound design is astounding to such a degree that I sat all the way through the credits because the sound design was still adding to the story all the way until the credits ended.

Thematically, the film makes no effort to be subtle, which is usually something I hate in a film because not trusting one's audience is the quality I dislike most in a filmmaker. Here, however, the film's theme rest on the principle that we, as an audience have proven we can't be trusted to understand a subtle message. Therefore, this film tells you what it means, and it does so explicitly most of the time.

Spoiler

Digger's speech to a pan-Euro parliament delivers the film's central theme: You, the viewer, and us, the filmmakers, are the problem. We are all not only complicit in the existential crisis we find ourselves in, but causes of it.

And, this speech is set up by Digger taking a private plane ride to the speech with the chief whistleblowing scientist in the film. During the ride, the scientist refuses to eat yellowfin tuna because of the environmental impacts of eating yellowfin. Digger spins a story about the love and care the person who farms the yellowfin puts into producing the tuna. Ultimately, this story convinces the scientist to eat the tuna and it produces a moment of sublime ecstasy for the scientist, one that Riz Ahmed plays as a familiarly nostalgic feeling for the scientist. The scientist knew better than to eat yellowfin, and quite clearly had given up doing so. However, Digger's story convinces him to consume something he knows he shouldn't, and then Digger reveals the story is fabricated, but it doesn't matter that the story is false as long as consuming the tuna makes you feel good.

Straightforwardly, the storytellers keep crafting stories to help us justify continuing to consume that which we know is the source of our own destruction. The artists and financiers are not portrayed as heroes. They are portrayed as villains along with the audiences who show up to the theater. Plemons' speech is nothing more than a "the show must go on" speech from a person with a large financial stake in the show going on--even if the show portrays his own ancestors as villains--because there is money to be made and an ego to be stroked in the show going on.

The idea that the audience can't be trusted to pick up a subtle message is exemplified by Digger's cat. The cat, obviously on the brink of death from the beginning, has it's illness barely noticed by Digger who, instead, insists the cat will be fine with just a little care. In fact, when Digger's vet tells Digger the cat has only "two months to five minutes" to live, instead of taking swift action, Digger calls for his own personal doctor to see the cat and give Digger a second opinion because Digger's personal physician is "afraid to disappoint" Digger. The thing we claim to cherish most is the thing we refuse to acknowledge is dying because doing so would require us to admit our own fault in causing its demise--which is precisely what Riz Ahmed tells Digger after Digger's pan-Euro parliament speech; the cat is dying from mercury poisoning because of what and how Digger fed the cat every day.

Digger is unsubtle because its central premise is that is has to be for us to understand the message. It posits we go out of our way to be able to create the kind of cognitive dissonance required for us to behave as we do while lamenting the way things are. That's why we, at least five times a year, have thousands of people board hundreds or thousands of airplanes to fly to various climate and biodiversity conferences to sit together and talk about how fossil fuel emissions are killing the world. It's why we keep buying smart devices and computers to post on social media about how the corporations who manufacture the devices we buy are evil and killing us all. And, the film industry and its audiences are as complicit as anyone else because they keep telling the stories that allow the rest of us to continue to justify the very consumptive behavior we malign. It feels good to have our comforts and conveniences and that is what matters most--that and having stories to help convince us that others to blame for creating the problem.

I will be interested to see what, if anything, Armond White does with this. It has all the makings of a film destined to make his "Better Than" list out of sheer spite for the scores who have expressed hatred for it. And, at the same time, the film is so transparently anti almost all White seems to stand for. Perhaps he simply leaves this one off the list because in his tiresome "film I want to troll you with v. film lots of people liked" list, it does not align well enough with White's politics to fall on the left side of the v and it wasn't well received enough to fall on the right side of the v.

[Mr Sausage]

Here, however, the film's theme rest on the principle that we, as an audience have proven we can't be trusted to understand a subtle message.

This is the first time I think I’ve ever seen someone defend a movie by claiming it has contempt for its audience.

A lot of people are defending Digger’s lack of subtlety in and of itself. But surely the problem is redundancy? This is a message movie whose message is clear and unambiguous, but also a maximalist movie uninterested in efficiency by its very nature. So the movie repeats itself a lot. It’s also a movie where the majority of the runtime is spent on material that even defenders say is deliberately unenjoyable.

So we’re left with a movie that forces its audience to endure material that everyone admits is unenjoyable by design even tho’ much or even most of that material is redundant for communicating the movie’s message. If no one needs to see this much unfunny material to grasp the point…why are we being asked to accept it?

I’ve also yet to see anyone address the fact that all of the movie’s ideas are conventional. Is this what we’re praising now, the sententious laying out of a handful of purely conventional ideas? Surely if Digger has merit, that merit lies beyond its blunt rephrasing of by now decades old criticisms of capitalists and the place of art, or lack thereof, in capitalism.

As for its cynical point that art no longer has a purpose or function in society, well, I think the same thing as when writers like William Burroughs and Henry Miller tell me that language is corrosive and must be stamped out as they go on writing novel after novel: I don’t believe you.

[Never Cursed]

Here, however, the film's theme rest on the principle that we, as an audience have proven we can't be trusted to understand a subtle message.

This is the first time I think I’ve ever seen someone defend a movie by claiming it has contempt for its audience.

Everything else notwithstanding, I don't think this is a particularly novel claim. Wasn't this rather infamously discussed as the "point" of Renoir's Rules of the Game, both at the time and retrospectively? Not that that movie was any better received when it came out than this one was!

[wattsup32]

Here, however, the film's theme rest on the principle that we, as an audience have proven we can't be trusted to understand a subtle message.

This is the first time I think I’ve ever seen someone defend a movie by claiming it has contempt for its audience.

A lot of people are defending Digger’s lack of subtlety in and of itself. But surely the problem is redundancy? This is a message movie whose message is clear and unambiguous, but also a maximalist movie uninterested in efficiency by its very nature. So the movie repeats itself a lot. It’s also a movie where the majority of the runtime is spent on material that even defenders say is deliberately unenjoyable.

So we’re left with a movie that forces its audience to endure material that everyone admits is unenjoyable by design even tho’ much or even most of that material is redundant for communicating the movie’s message. If no one needs to see this much unfunny material to grasp the point…why are we being asked to accept it?

I’ve also yet to see anyone address the fact that all of the movie’s ideas are conventional. Is this what we’re praising now, the sententious laying out of a handful of purely conventional ideas? Surely if Digger has merit, that merit lies beyond its blunt rephrasing of by now decades old criticisms of capitalists and the place of art, or lack thereof, in capitalism.

As for its cynical point that art no longer has a purpose or function in society, well, I think the same thing as when writers like William Burroughs and Henry Miller tell me that language is corrosive and must be stamped out as they go on writing novel after novel: I don’t believe you.

I didn't find the material unenjoyable and I laughed out loud several times. Perhaps that is a difference between my assessment and others. I found the control of the chaos of the opening scene, which I'll loosely call everything up to the "twist". exhilarating. I found the bombast a critical part of the characters, especially after the reveal of who the characters are (as an aside, I'm curious as to how people didn't realize what was happening before the "twist" is revealed because the film tells you what it is from the very first image that is not under water--further evidence that this is not a subtle film).

You are right that the ideas are conventional. However, don't think its point is that art no longer has a purpose or function in society. It's point is that art has a higher function or purpose than to provide the means for the rest of us to continue to participate in our own demise without guilt.

You are also right that it is, at least in delivering its message, redundant. However, what is neither conventional nor redundant is using the platform to say to its audience, "we have been telling you this for decades; we keep telling you this; and you keep willfully creating new ways to ignore it."

Perhaps nothing ever justifies contempt for an audience. But, if anything does, shouldn't we have contempt for an audience that hasn't grasped this message by now?

[Mr Sausage]

Here, however, the film's theme rest on the principle that we, as an audience have proven we can't be trusted to understand a subtle message.

This is the first time I think I’ve ever seen someone defend a movie by claiming it has contempt for its audience.

Everything else notwithstanding, I don't think this is a particularly novel claim. Wasn't this rather infamously discussed as the "point" of Renoir's Rules of the Game, both at the time and retrospectively? Not that that movie was any better received than this one was!

Fair enough if people’ve claimed this before. It’s just that I don’t remember ever seeing it. And it’s a weird gambit.

I mean, I could buy this kind of argument if the film held a distinction between its intended and its implied audience (ie. it was making fun of the kind of people it assumed would go to see it, but was leaguing itself with a second, implied audience not part of the first group who would laugh at the jokes. Making fun of the rich to their faces on behalf of the poor who might witness, for example). But arguing the movie is good because we’re stupid and need our messages force fed to us…who is this meant to convince?

But even the movie’s bluntness is following current trends, right? We’re in an era where Obsession reshot its ending to refine away any possible ambiguity, lest people think it was morally bad and give its makers a good old public shunning. Hollywood movies at the moment tend towards blunt, unambiguous moral messages, often delivered in a lecturing tone. Digger doing the same just makes the movie as trend seeking as the conventional entertainments it’s trying to distinguish itself from. Again, if Digger has merit, it surely can’t be here.

[Mr Sausage]

Here, however, the film's theme rest on the principle that we, as an audience have proven we can't be trusted to understand a subtle message.

This is the first time I think I’ve ever seen someone defend a movie by claiming it has contempt for its audience.

A lot of people are defending Digger’s lack of subtlety in and of itself. But surely the problem is redundancy? This is a message movie whose message is clear and unambiguous, but also a maximalist movie uninterested in efficiency by its very nature. So the movie repeats itself a lot. It’s also a movie where the majority of the runtime is spent on material that even defenders say is deliberately unenjoyable.

So we’re left with a movie that forces its audience to endure material that everyone admits is unenjoyable by design even tho’ much or even most of that material is redundant for communicating the movie’s message. If no one needs to see this much unfunny material to grasp the point…why are we being asked to accept it?

I’ve also yet to see anyone address the fact that all of the movie’s ideas are conventional. Is this what we’re praising now, the sententious laying out of a handful of purely conventional ideas? Surely if Digger has merit, that merit lies beyond its blunt rephrasing of by now decades old criticisms of capitalists and the place of art, or lack thereof, in capitalism.

As for its cynical point that art no longer has a purpose or function in society, well, I think the same thing as when writers like William Burroughs and Henry Miller tell me that language is corrosive and must be stamped out as they go on writing novel after novel: I don’t believe you.

I didn't find the material unenjoyable and I laughed out loud several times. Perhaps that is a difference between my assessment and others. I found the control of the chaos of the opening scene, which I'll loosely call everything up to the "twist". exhilarating. I found the bombast a critical part of the characters, especially after the reveal of who the characters are (as an aside, I'm curious as to how people didn't realize what was happening before the "twist" is revealed because the film tells you what it is from the very first image that is not under water--further evidence that this is not a subtle film).

You are right that the ideas are conventional. However, don't think its point is that art no longer has a purpose or function in society. It's point is that art has a higher function or purpose than to provide the means for the rest of us to continue to participate in our own demise without guilt.

You are also right that it is, at least in delivering its message, redundant. However, what is neither conventional nor redundant is using the platform to say to its audience, "we have been telling you this for decades; we keep telling you this; and you keep willfully creating new ways to ignore it."

Perhaps nothing ever justifies contempt for an audience. But, if anything does, shouldn't we have contempt for an audience that hasn't grasped this message by now?

I’m glad you enjoyed so much of the movie! Most defences don’t disagree that the bulk of the movie is unfunny, grotesque, and muddled, they just say that was the intention. And I believe them. It’s just not the defense they think it is.

Even your defense admits that art’s “higher function” has failed. Digger is not reclaiming or reorienting art, it’s serving as its tombstone.

EDIT—I should add that Digger’s conception of art’s ‘high function’ as, in effect, a sermon, shows it doesn’t even much understand art anyway. Or worse, reveals in its makers the arrogance of the would be saviour who resents his audience for not listening to his world changing truths!