‘2073’ Trailer: Asif Kapadia Brings The Future To Us
Photo from Variety
From Ryan Cordaro
Overtly political movies can admittedly be a hard watch for me. It’s not a focusing thing or even a “I don’t like this sort of movie” thing, but I’ll get very weirded out with movies that are specifically talking about these topics like war and impending doom and all that. What reminded me of it was seeing a headline about a movie called War Game from earlier this year, which is about American officials simulating a coup after a disputed election. It wasn’t a very popular movie, but outside of the two main roles, all the characters were played by actual government members with no acting experience. I suppose it was to add realism to a fictional story, and at some point, I feel like that could be a decent watch. With 2073, though, they lean right into the realism, digging a trench into reality.
Inspired by Chris Marker’s short film La Jetée, 2073 realizes the worst fears of modern life. A fusion of documentary and thriller (or docuthriller, if you would), it follows a mute woman plagued by nightmarish visions of the past and living underground as surveillance drones patrol a war-torn country. That country is ours, with these visions showcasing how, back in 2024, America didn’t do anything to stop the impending disaster that would haunt the country all these years later. It’s obviously not a light watch, and as interested as I am in watching this, I’m hoping it comes out next year. In a year that had Civil War released and caused discourse, I don’t need even more of that, especially from a documentary. I’m not even going to mention The Apprentice, the Donald Trump-focused biopic with Sebastian Stan playing the former President, that’s releasing mere weeks before Election Day. I’ll give this a shot simply for the concept, but I’m going to wait until this year’s chaos calms down before I think about watching it.
The “thriller” cast includes Samantha Morton (Minority Report, The Serpent Queen), Naomi Ackie (Blink Twice, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker), and Hector Hewer (The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself). The documentary portions were compiled by director Asif Kapadia showing “footage from around 60 different countries, which I made to look like one place,” which includes recent footage of the devastation occurring in Gaza right now.
2073 is expected to be released later this year by NEON, its release date unannounced at time of writing. It will premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 3rd, so expect a release date soon.
