Add another name to the "Digger" fan club. This one showed up without being asked.
According to Polish journalist Damian Pietrzak, two-time Oscar winner Janusz Kamiński was speaking at a Camerimage seminar on Sunday when he started praising Alejandro G. Iñárritu's "Digger." He called it "magnificent" and "one of the best films he has ever seen." Nobody had brought the film up. It wasn't on the agenda. Kamiński just decided Toruń needed to hear it.
Let's count. The day the bad reviews hit, Iñárritu's fellow amigos Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón rushed to the film’s defense. Del Toro called the critical pile-on "entirely petty" and later summed up his position as "Love the arts. F*ck the charts." Fair enough, but those two were always going to show up. That's what amigos do.
Then Hollywood joined in. Michael Mann, Ron Howard, Jane Fonda, and more came out. Mann, who directed Cruise in "Collateral," called his performance "EXTRAORDINARY," in all caps. Howard called it "one of those rare ones." Ben Affleck went further and blamed the "high-school bullying" of the film for the sorry state of risk-taking in Hollywood. Then Hideo Kojima weighed in. Mandy Patinkin stated it’s “one of the greatest pieces of film I have ever seen in my entire life.” And a couple of weeks later, Denis Villeneuve called "Digger" "a furious comedy" and "a very important movie." I haven’t even mentioned Anne Hathaway and Glen Powell.
Janusz Kamiński is part of the “Digger hive.” He called it "magnificent" and "one of the best films he has ever seen." Nobody had brought the film up in the interview. Kamiński just decided to firmly plant his stance.