2073

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This is not a film. This is not a documentary. This is a warning.

This is a quote from 2024's 2073, a dystopian docudrama that brilliantly uses news and television clips to weave a science fiction story we are already living. Imagine Facebook doom scrolling for one hour and twenty-four minutes and you have the emotional impact of this prescient movie. Unfortunately, I believe the title is as optimistic as the movie is bleak. 2028 would have been more appropriate, as we hurl toward Democracy's demise faster than the director, Asif Kapadia, could imagine.

2073 premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival in the category "Out of Competition," which could not be more appropriate for Kapadia's dynamic, passionate, admirable and beautifully rendered imagining of our near future. At its heart, 2073 immerses us into a Meta-verse where humanity teeters between incredible technological advancements and deep ethical dilemmas.

Staring the frighteningly beautiful Samantha Jane Morton (Alpha from The Walking Dead), 2073 sets us in a vast metropolis that is both breathtaking and bleak, showcasing a stunning yet haunting city filled with vivid colors and dark shadows, the film maker using lighting to evoke emotions, and creating the documentary feel of this art piece. With skyscrapers towering into the clouds and streets pulsating with technological energy, each frame is meticulously designed and its this attention to detail that establishes a captivating visual language, beautifully complimenting the nearly extinct plot.

Morton is a brilliant actress, and riveting on screen, but there's only so much heavy lifting she can do in a film so obviously motivated to sway audiences to one side of the political debate. In today's polarized politics, this feels manipulative even while I silently scream "Yes, yes, yes!" It's as if the director is inside my head, capturing my dismay at today's state of affairs and my fear of what's to come.

This is a solid film. Very watchable. And at times, extraordinary in it's achievement of blurring fact and fiction. But at its core, its as shallow as the news anchors it highlights, reading from teleprompters with dead eyes and an emptiness that makes us feel as if we are reliving the news like a memory versus witnessing it in real time.

I encourage you to watch it. And I know it will change nothing.

God Bless the Americas.