Digger and The Burning Forests of Indonesia
Warning: Spoilers regarding the film Digger ahead.
I was born and raised in the UK, where it is easy to look away. But, as an Indonesian part of the diaspora, I can’t help but ache as the land my ancestors lived on is burned and torn apart.
By the end of September 2026, an estimated 1.92 million hectares of Indonesia have burned. The dry conditions behind the fires were caused by a natural climate pattern in which the surface of the tropical Pacific Ocean becomes unusually warm. These conditions shift rainfall patterns globally, and in Southeast Asia, they bring less rain than normal, leaving forests and peatlands more likely to ignite. Still, the fires are also linked to land clearing for palm oil plantations and mining, with devastating consequences for ecosystems and local communities.
For the people whose identities, histories, and livelihoods are tied to ancestral forests, this is more than environmental damage. It raises the question of capitalism. Who has the right to profit from the land, and who must suffer the consequences?
That question is reflected in Digger (2026), a satirical black comedy about oil tycoon Digger Rockwell, whose drilling causes an environmental disaster. The film is fiction, yet its depiction of corporate power and exploitation of natural resources reflects real-world realities which are relevant to what is occurring in the world today. And Indonesia is not the only country impacted by deforestation: the same happenings are playing out in Brazil, the DRC, Bolivia, Peru, and beyond.
Digger and Corporate Greed
I watched Digger a few weeks ago, and I loved it. I was first intrigued by the mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, and the worse they got, the more I wanted to watch it (to preface; I also ironically like bad films), but Digger was actuallygood. So good (in my opinion) I ended up rating it 4.5/5 on Letterboxd, although film is subjective, so no judgement if you didn’t like it as much as I did.
What really stole the show for me was Tom Cruise’s performance. For the beginning act of the film, he appears to be playing Digger Rockwell. But partway through the film, we, the audience, discover that the story we’ve been watching is actually a stage play called Fossil Fools, and that Digger is a role being performed by an actor named Curtis Markson. In other words, Cruise is playing Curtis, an actor, who is playing Digger. The layering of characters means Cruise has to sell two performances as one: an over-the-top billionaire on stage, and a vulnerable, human actor underneath.
As Digger, he captures the essence of a character who represents a system where economic success is built on extraction and profit. The meta, play-within-a-play structure adds an additional layer. Digger is a role someone can put away at the end of the night; however, the systems he represents remain.
The film begins with Digger receiving continuous warnings about the environmental consequences of his actions, and it highlights the tension between short-term financial gain and long-term damage. It invites the audience to ask whether those who control natural resources should be free to exploit them when the consequences land on people far outside their worldview. That framing is extremely relevant when we look at real-world industries whose profits depend on clearing natural landscapes to produce goods.
Like Digger, Indonesia’s forests have had their fair share of warnings. From scientists, from NGOs working on the ground in Sumatra and Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), and from the haze drifting over neighbouring countries like Singapore and Malaysia. And just like Digger, environmental destruction, whether it be melting glaciers or fires burning inside concessions, has not stopped.
Forests for Profit
So, who exactly is responsible for the fires? The answer is more complicated than you think. According to Nusantara Atlas via the Jakarta Post, nearly a quarter of the land burned in January to July 2026 sits inside business concessions, with the largest shares in oil palm, mining and pulpwood plantations.
Greenpeace has gone further with the research, identifying more than 20 palm, pulp, and sugar companies whose concessions contained likely sources of smoke, which it describes as a pattern of tolerating fires to clear land for commercial development. Responsibility, however, is contested.
Malaysia’s government says no Malaysian plantation companies were involved in burning, whilst other firms maintain that fires spread in from neighbouring land. Meanwhile, as of early September, Indonesia’s Environment Ministry has suspended at least 21 companies over alleged links to the fires. When blame is thrown around, accountability becomes difficult to cement.
In Fossil Fools, the villain is scrutinised, but then the play ends, and the consequences remain. Real accountability can look similar. Companies are named, shamed, and defensive statements are sometimes given. However, whether the detrimental effects stop is another issue. Those living beside the forests are left inhaling the smoke. The same question Digger poses, remains: when the land is turned into profit, who must bear the damage?
Who Suffers?
The smoke from the wildfires has moved beyond Indonesia’s borders, and the damage is now widespread across maritime Southeast Asia (SEA). On the 4th of September, Singapore’s air quality had reached ‘unhealthy’ levels for the first time since 2023. By mid-October, Singapore had opened over 300 haze shelters and begun distributing N95 masks to vulnerable residents. In Malaysia, schools in several territories, including the capital Kuala Lumpur, were ordered to be closed as of the 9th of October.
The people closest to the fires, who must breathe and live alongside the fires, carry the heaviest burden. The health ministry has since recorded over 280,000 cases of acute respiratory infection in seven fire-affected provinces. Even so, children in places like South Kalimantan, located in Indonesian Borneo, have been photographed walking to school through the smog.
Additionally, it is not only humans who suffer; the forest’s other inhabitants also suffer. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) states that the fires are burning in habitats which hold 52% of Borneo’s orangutan population, a critically endangered species.
Across six priority provinces affected by the wildfires, more than 270 wild animals in Indonesian Borneo had been rescued by the 10th of October. This includes 46 orangutans rescued by one conservation group, according to the Ministry of Forestry. Along with the relief efforts, anger has begun to reach the streets.
In A World of Protest
On the 20th of October, widespread student protests erupted in Jakarta, along with other major cities including Yogyakarta, Bandung, and Makassar. The common criticism included frustration with the government’s handling of fires as well as other societal issues.
In Digger, the audience leaves the theatre and returns to a grey, gloomy world where environmental damage has become the new normal. The villain is left hated, but nothing has changed, and nothing is fixed. Life continues.
The protestors are refusing to allow Indonesia to follow that narrative. Of course, wildfires return every dry season. Of course, it would be easy to continue to close schools and wear masks on repeat, but we shouldn’t pretend that this is normal, that it cannot be stopped, or that no one is accountable for it. The disaster that occurs in Digger is fiction; the people choking on this smoke and haze are not.
Again, as someone living in the UK, I know how easy it is to look away, but we shouldn’t. The smoke, the rising sea temperatures, and melting glaciers will eventually not care where you live, or where you were raised.
Digger ends on a world that has adapted to live with the damage. Indonesia and countless other countries around the world are being asked to do the same: to treat the burning and destruction of their homeland as the price of development. The question that Digger asks still stands. Who has the right to profit from the land, and who is forced to suffer the consequences?
