I SAW 1984 (2023)

I've discovered another film version of George Orwell's 1984. It's Russian, which is interesting since Orwell's novel was banned there (the Soviet Union, that is) until 1988. This 2023 adaptation also makes good use of related, totalitarian elements found in Brave New World, The Prisoner, Metropolis, Fahrenheit 451, Equilibrium and THX 1133.

This particular version is directed by Diana (KAPahatu) Ringo, who scripted with Yvgeni Zamyatin; Ringo also acts as executive producer, composer, cinematographer and provocative, leading lady. 

Instead of woeful Winston, there's woeful mathematician D503, played by Aleksandr  Obamnov, and instead of rebellious Julia, there's rebellious, (fiction/propaganda) department worker, 1-330, who Ringo portrays, and they and their dismal surroundings are cut from the same dystopic cloth. Make no mistake: This is Orwell's vision, even if "modernized" in labels, graphics and locales.  

Much of Ringo's adaptation is verbose, as any worth-while version of 1984 should be; that's what distinguishes the prime portions of Orwell's text. 1984 has something to say, as does Ringo, and such filters through her surreal, surrogate Julia, but also through Ringo's forefront participants, who do an excellent job looking stressed and eager to please in a harsh, unimaginative system designed to break their dreams. (To hear a beleaguered character juggle with the meaning of words--the "right and wrong" usages of any such set--hits close to home, since I, like so many over the past few years, has had to endure work meetings where pronoun usages were discussed ad nauseum, all to ensure that we stay in indistinguishable, conformist check.) 

As but expected, this version (like all versions of Orwell's tale) reminds us how too many of us are willing to let our freedoms dissipate, instead of fighting to keep them, just because some bureaucratic Big Brother says so. Why tolerate it? The outcome has good people labeled as bad and indisputable truths (e.g. 2 + 2 = 4) dismissed as lies. Orwell's prophetic vision has mirrored our world in this awful way, and so does Ringo's reconstruction. Because her film dares to reveal the truth, I must praise it. 

For those who feel bullied in the mainstream of things, this 1984 details where we've come and where we don't wish to be. It won't erase the suffocating pain of recent years or the governmental hypocrisy embedded within such, but at least after ruminating its message (its frightful, reverberating warning) one may at least feel empowered enough to say enough's enough. 

One can experience Ringo's retelling on Amazon Prime.