Thoughts on Dark City

 

via Pinterest; sue me, I wanted a little bit of glamour!

"I feel like I'm living out someone else's nightmare."

We're less than two months into The Films of 1998 and we've already had three movies explore man's limits or potential in shaping his and others' fate. We've got at least two more movies to go, The Truman Show and Pleasantville, with similar ideas. Right now, I remember Lisa Schwarzbaum's review of Fallen, where she observed how as the millennium neared, "folks who have forgotten how to pray want to believe." Pop culture reflected that. It's like moviemakers collectively decided to have characters rediscover humanity as a way to find meaning. Humanity could be easily manipulated (Fallen), a contrast to (and unexpected security against) the unimaginable (Sphere), or in Dark City, manipulated but also full of unimaginable qualities.

Dark City was directed, co-written, had a story from and was co-produced by Alex Proyas, who shares screenwriting credit with Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer. The movie is at its best when we're discovering what's possible with tuning, like the city evolving to suit the purposes of Mr. Hand (Richard O'Brien), Mr. Book (Ian Richardson) and the other Strangers. Roger Ebert, who loved Dark City, declared that "for once a movie city equals any we could picture in our minds." I agree with Roger. I also liked how Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) watching the tuning happen didn't include Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) talk-talk-talking all over the place. The director's cut got rid of Schreber's opening monologue, but he's still a chatterbox.

Schreber's speeches have a place in Dark City, I suppose. Someone besides the Strangers and poor Walenski (Colin Friels) needed to have an understanding of the maleable reality created for Murdoch, Emma (Jennifer Connelly), Inspector Bumstead (William Hurt), et al. Along with the Strangers and the building that literally comes out of nowhere, Dark City's most celebrated image might be that of working class Charlie and Sylvia Goodwin (Terry Bader and Rosemary Traynor) becoming members of high society. This is the sort of thing that people dream about, being able to live a different life, and here it's played straight -- and terrifyingly.

"We're very lucky when you think about it. ... To be able to revisit those places which have meant so very much to us."

"I thought it was more that we were haunted by them."

"Perhaps. ... But imagine a life alien to yours. In which your memories were not your own, but those shared by every other of your kind. Imagine the torment of such an existence. No experiences to call your own."

"If it was all you knew, maybe it would be a comfort."

"But if you were to discover something different ... something better."

One of the things I was struck by in Hush was how the schemes were clearly the work of a socipath. They would fall apart if two people actually communicated. The Strangers of Dark City are outright aliens who treat mankind like lab animals and yet they still had some respect for them. Hell, Hand ends up coveting what Murdoch has experienced or can experience. The understanding that man and alien gain, the shared humanity, gives Dark City a stable foundation and helps mitigate some potentially maudlin dialogue.

"... I wanted to know what it was like. How you feel."

"You know how I was supposed to feel. That person isn't me. It never was. You wanted to know what it was about us that makes us human. Well, you're not going to find it in here (the mind). You went looking in the wrong place."

Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- "Wherever your husband is, he is searching for himself."

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $14.4 million domestically on a $27 million budget, this opened at No. 4 and came in at No. 105 for 1998.

-- Critic's Corner: "At its best, the movie feels like a magician's trick, a gleefully improvised demonic fantasy," Stephen Holden wrote for The New York Times. "(Proyas') skill as a visually gifted director remains unquestioned," according to Todd McCarthy, Variety. Ebert: "Not a story so much as an experience, it is a triumph of art direction, set design, cinematography, special effects -- and imagination." "It hasn't been directed so much as art-directed," according to Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post. That sounds like a pan, but Stephen actually had praise. "It's a solemn hoot. ... If you don't fall in love with it, you've probably never fallen in love with a movie, and never will." Todd did concede that "the structural impression is that of a plot grid more than of a deeping story." Owen Gleiberman delivered the killing blow: "Proof of what little impact (eye-popping) imagery will make if we have no investment in the story it's decorating. ... So busy trying to blow your mind it never reveals a mind of its own."

-- Awards Watch: Winner of the Saturn for Best Science Fiction Film (tying with Armageddon) and the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, this was also a Saturn nominee for its writing (losing to The Truman Show), direction (Armageddon), costumes (Ever After: A Cinderella Story), makeup (Vampires) and special effects (Godzilla).

-- Fanservice Junction: We have Murdoch's initial scene, where he gets out of a hotel room bathtub and takes in his surroundings, or May stripping as she expects to have sex with Murdoch.

-- "I love you, John. You can't fake something like that." "No, you can't."

-- Next: Twilight. On deck: The Big Lebowski.