Simon Stone's 'The Dig' Explores Archaeology as Antidote to Uncertainty

Luigi Affabile reviews Simon Stone's film 'The Dig' (La nave sepolta), released in 2021, which dramatizes the 1939 excavation of an Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, England. The film stars Carey Mulligan as landowner Edith Pretty and Ralph Fiennes as self-taught archaeologist Basil Brown, who discovers two medieval cemeteries and a 27-meter-long funerary ship belonging to King Raedwald, a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon ruler of East Anglia. The find attracts the British Museum, which sends archaeologist Charles Phillips (Ken Stott) with assistants Stuart Piggott and Peggy Preston (Ben Chaplin and Lily James). The screenplay by Moira Buffini adapts John Preston's novel, taking liberties with historical facts. Cinematography by Mike Eley and costumes by Alice Babidge are praised for period accuracy. In spring 1940, as Churchill announces England's entry into WWII, the ailing Edith bequeaths the treasure to the British Museum on condition that Basil Brown be recognized as the discoverer—a recognition that came only years later. Fiennes told the BBC he hopes the film, released during the COVID-19 pandemic, offers a positive message about collective effort and determination.