PG-13 | 1h 52min | Historical Drama | 2021
In 1922, archaeologist Howard Carter, who discovered the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, stood at its door. After a prolonged excavation, or “dig,” in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, Carter was the first human in some 3,000 years to set foot there. In typical British understatement, he captured the momentous occasion by saying that time seemed to have “lost its meaning.”
The film “The Dig,” directed by Simon Stone, takes its philosophical cue from Carter and reflects on time and its meaning. But it draws inspiration from another dig, in 1939 England, which revealed an ancient Anglo-Saxon treasure-laden ship buried beneath a countryside moor. It also draws on John Preston’s eponymous novel based on the real-life man and woman who powered that historic discovery.
A widow with an archaeological itch, Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan) contracts archaeologist-excavator Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) to dig on her land on her hunch that it’ll throw up a “find.” True to her instinct, it does. As the dig proceeds, they unearth special meanings that time holds for them, and a little more than treasure in the mud.
Digging Inside
At one level, Stone’s film is about how time leaves shards of history buried under a tomb or mound, hidden sometimes for centuries. At a deeper level, it’s about how we sometimes bury our true self under a façade. Only those who care enough can help us uncover the “treasure” we’ve hidden.Brown’s treasure is his thirst for knowledge, his mastery of Latin, geology and astronomy, and his nose for soil and its secrets. But he’s hidden that treasure from everyone, including from himself. When he’s tempted to leave the dig to the petty machinations of museums, it takes the collective persuasion of Pretty, May, Robert, and Rory to let his treasure surface and shine.
Pretty’s treasure is her selflessness likewise hidden, especially from herself. It takes more than nudges from Brown and others to let her treasure shine.
Brown loves his wife, May, yet enjoys a companionship with Edith that flows more from mutual admiration than from romantic tension. If there’s a wisp of romance in the air, everyone—including May—recognizes it as that: a wisp and nothing more.
Mulligan is a terrific actress. Perfect for pugnacious Pretty, she brings a delicate mix of softness, backbone, and repressed upper-class sensibilities to the role. As the Ipswich Museum pleads with her to free Brown from her contract, she leaves it entirely to him. There will be no landlord’s tantrum to insist that he obey her or the museum.
Fiennes is brilliant as a mascot for “continuity.” He rises at night to prevent rain from ruining the dig—his bid to preserve the past from an intervening present. Not satisfied with looking down at the soil, he uses his telescope to look up at the sky.
Simon Stone delights in using symbols and contextualized imagery to suggest an endless interplay between past, present, and future.
Pretty removes old petals as she places new flowers at her husband’s tomb, determined to find fresh ways of honoring the past. Her wireless radio interrupts her reverie about the past with broadcasts of a rude present: imminent war. Pained, she watches historical monuments slowly doubling up as gun positions. Sci-fi comics near a sleeping Robert suggest that he’s dreaming of a future currently too fantastic for his present.
Amateur photographer Rory captures the present with his camera (the historic dig in progress), but it’s for the sake of the future (archives that’ll tell the story behind the dig). When Brown’s about to give up, thanks to meddlesome museums, May dares him not to by reminding him why he uncovers the past at all: to let future generations know their roots.
Fine Points and Flaws
Stone’s unobtrusive efficiency ensures that a sense of things buried permeates his film; thoughts, feelings, ambitions, even words stay hidden. Much of Brown’s and Pretty’s dialogue is through voiceover, almost as if they’re afraid to fully voice their feelings.Sadly, screenwriter Moira Buffini squanders a bit of the movie in a romantic subplot: Rory falls for the wife of a museum archaeologist. But it’s all so contrived that it lets down the otherwise flawless execution of Stone’s direction, Mike Eley’s cinematography, and Stefan Gregory’s soundtrack. You sorely miss what could’ve been a more complete and compelling character and story arc between Brown and Pretty.
The film also asks: To whom does history belong? To those who make it in states or kingdoms? To those who find it in relics? Or to those who preserve and showcase it in museums? The answer, it suggests, is all of us.
We can decide the kind of future we want by choosing what of the past and present we must protect, and what we can afford to let die away.
