2073

Charlotte messaged me to ask if I was up for going to a movie in Neuadd Ogwen on Friday night. The film was 2073, and the film poster looked apocalyptic. It would be a bit awkward! I would see Jenny (my Welsh tutor) in the pub until 18:45, and the film was at 19:00. Tight! But if I would leave at strictly 18:45 (sometimes we overrun a bit), drive home, and immediately dive into the cinema it sounded possible. Later it turned out that the film wouldn’t start until 19:30; it was doors open at 19:00. So I could feed the cat first! Very important. 

When I mentioned the film to Jenny she suggested it couldn’t possibly more bleak than reality. She had a point. 

I found Charlotte and her friend Andrea, and we got in. Soon the film started. With fire. And storm. And bombardment and flood and drones and cameras. And a voice-over from Samantha Morton. It was clear that the premise was: in 2036, shit had hit the fan in a way that had been called ‘the event’. It was clearly some combination of war, totalitarianism, surveillance, inequality and climate apocalypse. It was now 37 years later, and the Earth was largely destroyed, but some rich people managed to have a comfortable, technology-enabled life. Others were living in the ruins, picking over the scraps. Samantha Morton was one of the latter. 

The question was posed ‘how did we get here?’ Soon the numbers started whizzing back from 2073 to various points in the past. The election of Duterte, Trump, Milei, Meloni. Brexit. The growth of Amazon. The financial crisis. Concentration camps for Uyghurs. Palantir targeting the NHS. Anti-Muslim violence in India. Gaza. You name it. 

There were also dissident voices. Maria Ressa in the Philippines, Rana Ayyub in India, Carole Cadwalladr and George Monbiot in the UK. 

I hadn't expected this to be largely a documentary. The storyline with Samantha Morton is very simple and very predictable; she's curries around a bit until she gets arrested and that's the end of her. And before the end, she manages to leave a message: it was too late for me, but maybe it isn't too late for you. Stand up against this power grab, stand up against this undermining of democracy.

All this makes it a very strange film. But it hits you really hard! Normally you don't get all these various aspects of what's going wrong in the world thrown at you in such quick succession. And if you see footage of it on the news, the more graphic parts are excluded. No such protection here.

We came out numbed but impressed. But also wondering what it could be we could do. It's not as if we've never wondered this before! It reminded me a bit of the public lecture by Mike Berners-Lee. Yes we know a lot is going wrong, but what to do?

We needed a drink at the end of that film. But I would still absolutely recommend it! If you're ready to face the terrible state the world is in head-on…