2073
(director/writer: Asif Kapadia; screenwriter: Tony Grisoni; cinematographer: Bradford Young; editor: Chris King, Sylvie Landra; Music: Antonio Pinto; cast: Samantha Morton, Naomie Ackie, Hector Hewer; Runtime: 85; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: George Chigneli, Asif Kapadia; Neon; 2024-UK/USA)
“An unconventional documentary with a fictional story that startles us more than it enlightens us.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Brit director Asif Kapadia (“Creature”/”Amy”) brings us his fictional doc, an unconventional docudrama with a fictional story that startles us more than it enlightens us. It’s a blend of archival footage, CGs, interviews with world experts and a cautionary tale about a near-future dystopia amid the current rising tide that signals civilization is doomed.
In a strident tone Asif examines such modern-day issues as climate change, globalization, anti-democratic movements in governments and corporate greed. The bleak film tells us in fifty years the worse horrors we imagined will all become true, as the film veers back and forth from the present to the future.
In the year 2073, a woman called Ghost (Samantha Morton) is a survivor who lives underground in a squatter’s camp from what was once a shopping mall in Old San Francisco (now the New S.F.). Above ground surveillance cameras and drones watch everyone, troops patrol the area and oligarchs in power dwell in luxury towers above the city. We’re in a police state, people vanish for no reason. The Ghost acts like a mute, traumatized by the disappearance of her mother. She wishes to stay off the grid and remain unnoticed. She inhabits the same post-apocalyptic sci-fi surroundings as those in La Jetee, the great Chris Marker’s minimalist short film masterpiece in (1962), that was the inspiration for this film. La Jetee was a timeless and wise futuristic film in which 2073 can’t capture its same depth. Though the effect is unsettling, the visuals are dazzling and in its crazy-like moments leaves us with the nightmarish thought that the inept wind-bag psychopath Trump will still be around in 2073 and ruling like a fucking fascist.
It played at the Venice Film Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 11/26/2024 GRADE: B-
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