DARK CITY (1998) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge
Director: Alex Proyas Writers: Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs, and David S. Goyer (based on a story by Alex Proyas) Starring: Rufus Sewell, Keifer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt, Richard O'Brien, Ian Richardson, Melissa George
"Dark City" is a film that Kafka probably would have enjoyed. It's a film that presents a nightmare world, where everything is controlled by a group of supernatural creatures who have strange, mystic abilities beyond the control of humans. It's a film where one man stands alone, apart from everything else, and with no prior memory of how he got there, but possessing the will to find out what has happened and why. And it's a film where all of the strangeness and generally creepiness is backed up with a higher thinking concerning humanity and their role in determining their individuality. Yeah, Kafka would really have dug this.
"Dark City" concerns, well, a city in perpetual darkness. As the film opens, we meet a man (Rufus Sewell) who awakens in a bath tub, naked, and not having any memory of how he got there. After stumbling around a bit for clues, he finds a suitcase with clothes and a postcard in it, a broken syringe on the floor, and a murdered woman next to a bed. He soon discovers his name is John Murdoch, and we follow him as he searches out his identity, how and why he came to wake up in the bath tub, and whether or not he killed that woman.
The film sometimes switches to different perspectives, and we meet other characters involved in John's life. We meet his estranged night club singer wife, Emma (the lucious and lustful Jennifer Connelly), who has been looking for him since he has apparently disappeared from her life for awhile; Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland), a crippled doctor who somehow knows John was in the room when he woke up; and a police investigator (William Hurt) who is on the search for John, as he believes he has murdered several prostitutes in the past couple weeks.
I will not reveal many of John's discoveries throughout the film, as it's the source of many of the film's fun and inventiveness, but I will say that he stumbles upon an alien race living beneath the surface, called The Strangers. They are a huge group of men, all donning long black robes, all having shaved white heads, and possessing the ability to stop time and the ability to "tune," which is a psychic power that allows them to change things in the city, mostly when everyone's asleep. Since John also has the ability to "tune," he becomes the object of their obsession, and is soon being stalked by all of them in order to be killed.
"Dark City" was directed by Alex Proyas, who you may remember as the director of the cult classic pic "The Crow" (not the second one; only the first one), which was a classic revenge story told magnificently, with lots of emotion and a style that gave it a very comic book feel (it was also the film where Brandon Lee, son of Bruce, was killed on the set, which sent Proyas into a pit of depression for years until he decided to make this film as his sophomore effort). However, "Dark City" is nothing like "The Crow." It's not a comic book film, and it doesn't have many big action set pieces. Instead, it is a film portraying a human sadness, and creating a strange, kafkaesque mood throuhgout. Proyas has expanded his abilities on "Dark City," and has created a film that is much more ambiguous and full of more thought.
It's not an action pic, but is instead a film of ideas and theories...just the kind of weird films I like. Proyas' view on humanity is that we rely too much on a form of deity to control our minds and that we should break out from that and become individuals, gods of our own realms. The Strangers are the gods in this film, and Proyas has an interesting and intelligent take on them. They are not merely out to screw up creation, but to observe them with the intent of trying to understand their souls, the things that make them tick. In Christianity, we (meaning those of us who were raised as Christians, that is...even if we later rebelled against it) are brought up to believe that God created us, I guess, out of boredom or the need to create. The Strangers in this film have created humans to try and understand the thing that they do not have: individuality.
It is the goal of John, then, to try and overcome their power, since he was born with a genetic defect that gave him the ability to "tune" like they do (this is never really explained very well...but really, what reason would be sufficient?), and can therefore do battle with them once he understands exactly what he's doing. The film moves along as he and we learn information along the way, and by the finale, when we have discovered everything there is to learn, we have the grande finale, a sequence which may be a tad cheap and nihilistic, but is at least satisfying, and brings about an intelligent conclusion about our state in the grand scheme of things.
Maybe I'm overanalyzing this film though. Maybe it's just supposed to be a cool bit of neo-Kafka, featuring a proposterous idea about a bunch of people called The Strangers, and a completely amazing production design. I will say that as eye candy, this bleak film is jaw dropping. The sets are astoundingly cool-looking, the cinematography is just amazing, with lots of control over shadows and light (much like "The Crow"), and special effects which may seem a tad cheesy at times, but look damn cool. Compared to "The Crow," this film, which combines all kinds of old architecture, is better looking. But we already knew that from the commercials anyway (the previews were cool as hell, weren't they?).
However, as a whole, this film does what it set out to do: creating a bizarre and intriguing look at man's role in his (or her) fate, with a message to become master of his (or her) domain (if you'll pardon the disgusting imagery). Sure, it may not be the most brilliant film, and may possess a couple flaws which cripple it from becoming an instant classic (it's not going to ever be a "Metropolis"), but at least it amazes for what it is.
The acting in this film is surprisingly good. Rufus Sewell, a Shakespearean and period piece actor (known for the British films "Carrington," "Cold Comfort Farm," Branagh's "Hamlet" - he was Fortinbras - and the recently released "Dangerous Beauty"), brings his great acting abilities to his role, which could have been a throwaway performance by a lesser actor, but instead is a very sympathetic performance. Because of Sewell, it's easy to like John Murdoch, and not just because he's the lead.
In supporting roles, Kiefer Sutherland is pretty awesome as the enslaved Dr. Schreber, forced into helping The Strangers, but hiding a will to rebel against them. He speaks as if he's always out-of-breath, pausing between words in sentences to take a breath (it's surprisingly enough not annoying). Jennifer Connelly once again gets a pretty thin role, showing off more of her beauty than her acting abilities. She rarely gets a role that allows her to combine both (see her in "Mulholland Falls" for an exception to this), but at least she's cool in this (not to mention...wow). William Hurt brings some drollness to his role, which is underwritten a bit, and reminds us why we liked him back in the 80s, even if not enough (this is probably a better performance than his in the upcoming "Lost in Space," though). And as one of the head Strangers, ex-Rocky Horror Picture Show man, Richard O'Brien (remember Riff Raff?) gives another wacky performance, albeit not as memorable as Riff Raff (but how could it be?).
I have to say that despite a crappy theatre with the sound blaring out too much (it was a sneak preview at my college's crap theatre - I wasn't expecting quality), I very much enjoyed "Dark City," actually more than I did "The Crow." Although it doesn't unfold as neatly as it should (I would have liked it to have actually opened up on John in the tub, instead of giving us some background information - wouldn't that have been cool?), it's still a wild ride that is never boring or dull, and never insults the intelligence. And that, my friend(s), makes all the difference.
MY RATING (out of 4): ***1/2
Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews