Digger is not exactly bringing audiences to the cinema, but it’s certainly inciting conversation amongst those who’ve seen it. Despite its poor performance at the box office, the ranks of Digger fans continue to grow and now include the creator of Metal Gear. Hideo Kojima praised the film for how it tackles its themes and ideas and, in a conversation with its director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, even compared the film’s narrative to his own game Metal Gear Solid 2.
After calling Digger “a film that all of us living in today’s world should see” on his social media accounts, Kojima expanded on why he felt that way in an interview with Iñárritu for Gizmodo Japan. The film, which dives deep into climate catastrophe and misinformation in the form of both comedy and intense drama, drew comparisons to movies like Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove and Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator in how it forces audiences to examine the current state of the world by abstracting it into absurdist satire.
“It’s not a story where meteorites fall from the sky or aliens attack, instead capturing things that are actually happening in reality,” Kojima says of the film. “It’s also a very terrifying movie, but it feels like that’s precisely why they managed to make it a comedy. It feels like a film whose structure combines both cinema and theater, and in the end becomes a play presented not as something set in the future but as a part of our history. That structure is so well done it actually surprised me.”
He notes that these aspects in particular remind him of the social commentary present in Metal Gear Solid 2. “Back then we didn’t have social media, but the story I made was one where social media took on a life of its own,” Kojima explained to Iñárritu. “That’s a bit like what’s happening in Digger too, isn’t it? On social media sites misinformation spreads quickly, and there’s a fear over how this has an impact on politics and our daily lives. Here, too, I found Digger to be very similar structurally. As if stepping into the movie’s world, I felt a sense of fear, like we were being driven by forces beyond our control. Right now, aside from climate change, the thing that scares us all most is the possibility we’re lost in a digital world where we can’t tell what’s true.”
Iñárritu agrees with Kojima’s line of thinking, noting he has a fear that we’re losing touch with a shared reality that can connect us as we live instead inside “fragmented truths within our smartphones”. “Even the conversations taking place about the film are fueled not by the movie itself but the stories that surround it,” he continues. “Even people who haven’t seen it yet have strong opinions on it. Our current world is one of having firm convictions on things we haven’t even experienced.”
Here, too, Kojima was reminded of his own experiences. “I made a game called Death Stranding where you go around making deliveries, but people who hadn’t even played it were saying it was ‘just a walking simulator’ as though they’d actually played it!” he says. “That perception still persists now, and the way it can scares me the most. On top of that, of course, we have AI being integrated into social media, and you only end up seeing things you like. You’re seeing only the opinions and things you like, so differing opinions and ideas never reach you.
“As AI becomes more prominent, becoming almost like a concierge, we might end up in a situation where we only eat the foods we like or only meet people who share our views. It’s like we’re being manipulated by someone, like the people in Digger. We don’t know who or what’s behind it. That’s what’s so terrifying, and it’s why I want you to see this movie.”
Kojima’s love of film is no secret, and as he experiments with moving into film himself through his work with A24, he has bridged a gap between the games and cinema and considered where they are similar and where they diverge. Much like Backrooms whose director he also connected with, Digger is a film whose creator Kojima has found a kindred spirit in, sharing concerns for the future in the process. Maybe he should take up work as a full-time film critic when he finishes work on OD and Physint.