Dark
City
Reviewed
by Leonard Heldreth, May, 1999
From Alex Proyas, the director
of The Crow comes a stunningly original film that, for
its originality, depends upon being a pastische of our memories of
Life magazine pictures, advertisements, and other films, especially
the duplicitous gangster and detective films usually referred to as
film noir or dark film.
The plot, a kind of ultimately elaborated X-Files, mixes a hero with
amnesia, a limping doctor who could have been a relative of Dr. Strangelove,
a wise-cracking police inspector, and a femme fatale nightclub singer
into a story involving prostitute murders (a la Jack the Ripper, The
Blue Dahlia, and others), a chase across rooftops (Vertigo), aliens
who look like the vampire from Nosferatu, telepathic powers (as in
Scanners), and the importance of memory in identity (from Blade Runner).
All of these are dropped into a setting with so many impressive visuals
that the plot becomes almost an excuse to tour this rich but dark
feast for the eyes. Amazingly, all of the film and set references
make perfect sense within the framework of the film.
The audience is alerted at the beginning of the film in
a short prologue, apparently narrated by Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland),
that aliens have taken over the city, but that answer is a little
too simple. The actual plot begins with John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell)
waking up in a bathtub and realizing that he has no idea who he is
or why he is in this place. His mind as empty as his body is bare,
he dresses in the clothes he finds in the room and takes a phone call
from Dr. Schreber urging him to leave immediately before the people
arrive who are on the way to his apartment. Like Murdoch, the audience
must puzzle out what is going on and determine what the connection
is between the dead prostitutes, the figures in black, and Murdoch's
memories of Shell Beach. While the plot has some holes in it, such
as why Murdoch doesn't use his "tuning" powers more, these
go fast rapidly enough that they are hardly noticeable in the complexity
of the action and visuals.
Rufus Sewell is fine as Murdoch, looking completely befuddled
throughout the first two-thirds of the film and then conveying the
fury of the empowered hero fighting back at the end. Sutherland manages
to play the demented scientist without going over the top, and William
Hurt as Police Inspector Bumstead takes a part that would have fit
Humphrey Bogart and does justice to it. As Emma, Jennifer Connelly
makes both her love for Murdoch and her deceit of him (if it occurred)
believable and warbles a fine song or two, while Ian Richardson and
Richard O'Brien convey the chilling menace of the two aliens, Mr.
Book and Mr. Hand.
Yet the settings are the stars of this show. Many recent films have
presented cityscapes that were impressive–Ridley Scott's Blade
Runner, Tim Burton's Batman films, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro's
Delicatessen and City of Lost Children, Terry Gilliam's Brazil–but
Dark City embodies a visual imagination second to none and demonstrates
how far computer graphics have developed in recent years. Of the films
cited, Dark City comes closest to City of Lost Children in its fantasy
and originality. Not only is the overall concept impressive but the
film is full of shots and scenes that stick in the mind with the power
of dream images–the alien child gnawing at Murdoch's fingers
as he hangs from a window sill, skyscrapers erupting from the ground
and shaping themselves as they grow upward, tables elongating from
dreary kitchen tables in cheap flats into long dining tables in expensive
mansions, dead prostitutes with spiral patterns carved into their
skins. It is no accident that the film is dedicated to England's Dennis
Potter, whose television films have been cited in this column several
times. This film is as audacious in its visual presentation as Lang's
Metropolis or Kubrick's 2001 were when they were released. Dark City
will stretch your imagination–don't miss it.
