There’s a recurring motif throughout much of my writing wherein there is a reaching out across time and space, the need commune with those who come before or after being almost as important as the message itself. Perhaps this is a reflection how the deterioration of our modern world is leaving us increasingly isolated and wanting for greater connection. Perhaps it’s just something that’s ruminating in the back of my mind as I go through middle age and become increasingly attuned to how small my own moment of existence is in the vastness of the cosmos. Or perhaps this is universal, something that has always been and will always be part of the human experience as long as humans continue to exist.
“The Last Will and Testament of Kassandra XXIII” makes no equivocation about that caveat. We failed as a society to do the work necessary to mitigate the most catastrophic effects of climate change, which are now all but guaranteed to make most of the Earth uninhabitable within the next twenty years. If humans are to continue to exist and sustain a civilization, great sacrifices will need to be made by all of us so that future generations can operate within a sustainable framework. Yet despite so many of us knowing what needs to be done, our pleas with those in power to act have fallen on deaf ears, and much like Kassandra of Troy, we are forced to watch this terrible portent unfold exactly as so many refused to believe how we told them it would.
It’s easy, understandable even, to take a fatalistic view of art that bluntly reflects the state of the world without offering a clear or likely path to something better. But even in the face of doom, is the collective processing of our human experience not important?
Do we not still feel the need to express our hopes and despairs?
To celebrate and grieve?
To commune?
If all this seems like it’s been on your mind lately, there’s a good chance you’ve just seen Digger, or at least have been caught up in the online discourse around it. There’s not a lot I can add to it that hasn’t been said, but needless to say I’m in the pro-Digger camp, and I find it incredibly serendipitous that Digger and “The Last Will and Testament of Kassandra XXIII” have been put out in the world within a week of each other. I’d been trying to find a home for this story for years before it was finally accepted for GARLAND: Issue 6, so seeing a major film from Alejandro G. Iñárritu tackling the same themes at the same time has been deeply reaffirming on a personal level.
And I do believe that Digger’s central theme is the same as I’ve laid out for “The Last Will and Testament of Kassandra XXIII,” the thesis statement coming in the scene where Jesse Plemons’ character passionately confirms to both the actors and the audience that it is not only acceptable but also necessary to embrace the dichotomy between honoring the gravity of the inciting tragedy and honoring the collective need for catharsis, all while life goes on as best it can under the bleakest of circumstances.
To put it another way for those who think Digger’s message is nihilistic: There’s a scene near the end of The Lion In Winter where Henry has dunegeoned his sons Richard, Geoffrey, and John. While those three contemplate their likely execution, Richard proclaims he won’t give Henry the satisfaction of seeing him begging for his life. Geoffrey chides him, “You chivalric fool, as if the way one fell down mattered,” to which Richard replies, “When the fall is all there is, it matters.”
It matters that we make art in the face of tragedy, even if the art can’t forestall or undo the tragedy. It matters that we affirm our values even when our circumstances are indifferent to them. It matters that we commune, even if we don’t know when or how or with whom that communion will manifest.
As Kassandra XXIII would say, “Though the night is dark, take comfort in the knowledge that dawn may yet come.”
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