2073 ★★★

Released: 27 December 2024

Director: Asif Kapadia

Starring: Samantha Morton, Naomi Ackie

2073, the latest film from documentarian Asif Kapadia, is an odd film containing a strange, slightly bemusing fusion of styles. Some of it works, some drastically doesn’t. It is cheaply presented, but there is strength at its core. These contradictory elements combine, or rather clash, to form a documentary-fiction hybrid that lurches from the titular year of 2073 backwards through years such as 2018, taking a look at how humanity reached the dystopian crisis in which it finds itself. If you think that is a lot to cram into 80 or so minutes, you’d be right. The end of humanity is bundled together with little cohesion, but always with an engaging nature and a frightening truth.

Samantha Morton is a nameless, voiceless survivor of The Event, which took place 37 years prior to 2073. Screenwriters Kapadia and Tony Grisoni keep what happened deliberately vague; The Event could have been caused by any number of catastrophes, including economic disaster, climate change, or the rise of fascism. Society has crumbled, the Earth is nearly destroyed, and all notion of normality that we experience in 2024 is long gone. From 2073, Kapadia’s film flits back to the 1990s and early 2000s, posing the question: “How did we get here?”

These flashback documentary parts are, unsurprisingly considering Kapadia’s stellar background in the genre, much more compelling than the 2073 scenes. Despite this, Kapadia never interrogates or analyses the aforementioned question with enough deftness or detail. Everything is presented in a cohesive and compelling manner, but it is rather basic in what it is showing, even if what it says is accurate. Despite such shortcomings, the documentary scenes are strong in contrast to Morton’s 2073 parts, which are poorly written and verge on monotonous.

Bradford Young’s sweeping cinematography works well in engaging the viewer in this dystopian nightmare. The grandiose visuals hammer home the fear and sheer scope of the many catastrophes facing humanity, and whilst they are never quite as strong as the awe-inspiring visuals of Architecton, they really do enhance 2073’s bleak overtone. Kapadia’s construction of a futuristic world feels very much rooted in 2024; shiny luxury worlds for the rich that branch to the sky stand in stark contrast to the claustrophobic slums where the poor live. It is a scary vision backed up by footage of people like Jeff Bezos showing off an eerie, superficial, AI-backed utopia. Again, Kapadia’s strengths as a documentarian shine through.

2073 will make you roll your eyes on numerous occasions, but for all its speculation, there is a terrifying baseline of truth to everything Kapadia and Grisoni are saying. You might smirk at the image of a robot dog in 2073, much like you might at the futuristic vision of a flying car from old sci-fi films, but that smile will be wiped off your face later when present day footage from America shows such a dog acting as a sheriff. The main issue isn’t with what Kapadia and Grisoni are saying, or how accurate it is, but rather that it is presented in quite a tacky and simplistic, albeit engaging, way.