Digits

by William Scott Rees

short film

The faux history lesson of Digits is told only in shreds. As if key chapters in the biography of our fictionalized female terrorists had been sabotaged, that which seems to be coyly missing from the story enhances the suspense of the piece, we hope, and suggests a world, a reign, and a narrative even larger and more atmospheric that what the film actually presents. Inspired by a book on the German Baider Meinhoff activists, there was something compelling about photographs of the movement's terrorists writhing ferociously in the arms of law enforcement on one page, juxtaposed with photos depicting the cell's members slouching in drab hotel rooms, wearing knee socks, munching on snack crackers and loafing like harmless nobodies. Following that, Digits whips together the dramatically bizarre with the silliness of the ordinary - winking playfully in the audience as it kicks them in the gut.