"Dark City" (1998) - Movie Classics

Protagonist waking up in a badly lit rest room with no memory. Reading that line is an aversion some can generate over a clichéd movie and no doubt I began watching “Dark City” with that notion, a film highly praised by critic Roger Ebert which terribly failed in terms of box office collection. It as it staged is about a young man named John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awaking from an unclear memory been plotted by bald headed clan of creature/people and of course is the object of a frame up of being a serial killer, the city much is hunting for.

And if that premise appears monotonous, do not believe it, for it may be a fragment of a memory. Confused? You should be. Want answers? You will not be provided straight forward. Reason is not the idea of cheating or looking down on the audience rather it is to give the first hand experience of the city which reflects a comic book caricatured characters and redundant as such to tell, dark. Directing and writing the story, Alex Proyas is a daring film maker to theme almost every scene with darkness. We stumble for explanation among those unexplained gutters, dimmed street lights and terraces of emptiness.

There is a voice over which explains much of the suspense, as wiki says. Despite that I found thrown back by the suspense but quite true what wiki says some people mute the few minutes because it would be the ultimate thrill and shock without listening it. Regardless, the pay off is either way an inventive shock and a revelation one would be made to seriously think about the species of our uniqueness. It is a spark to discuss about the greatest mysteries of our operation, development, destroying capability and the foundation of caring and hating each other under the realm of complex psychological phenomena. Books does not get exhausted in investigating one brain cell at a time while films grow up in grasses every year to possibly give a replica of the emotional ambiguity and give a sense of confide and confidence in us. Yet we are in the living block of constant surprises, confusion and depression with occasional joy of living. What are we? We define powers beyond our imagination as a representational symbol, then in the quest of wanting more out of it, we zest on it and be consumed by it. We are indeed capable of everything and we are puzzled by the existence of other planetary living things and how it will alter the life of ours. We have a lot to explore in ourselves. This paragraph is the out come of the plethora of concepts and existence “Dark City” teases to.

Does it mean that it is a technical mumbo jumbo of “The Matrix Reloaded” final intellectual gibberish of abysmal explanation? Going back to how the film builds upon the character and keeps us in the hide and then as the screenplay unveils, everything blows up and the big picture is unfathomable yet clear as sparkling water. The city which represents the current world of our living can be an ethereal dot in a lost memory. I would love to discuss the plot of the film and invoke a conversation which would go beyond as a film. It is the riddle of thoughts as a kid one might dwell upon the science classes and the spiritual classes. I would want any one to see the film with an idea of science fiction but also give in to the noir styled version of the murder mystery the film takes us. As it is the key to the plot in turn the behaviour and the existence of these super powered beings that stop the clock and the city to reprogram it for their experiment.

The production is collective creation of a comic book styled, futuristic, classic, nostalgic, and irritatingly dark presentation with a story conjoined into it keeping us on our toes. The film depends on the performance of Rufus Sewell, Keifer Sutherland as Dr. Schreber, William Hurt as the doubtful Inspector Bumstead and Jennifer Connelly as John’s wife Emma. I only remember Richard O’ Brien from the game of a different kind “The Crystal Maze”, one of the inventive puzzle shows (a game show of a kind) but here as one of the “beings”, he is more than terrorizing. He is a mix of a scary but curious being. He is suspicious but not immediately scary. That makes most of the characters to acknowledge his/its presence as that of a human being.

“Dark City” indeed is a science fiction which should have accumulated far better recognition than it has gained later. It is the rare kind of film which in its story and execution accomplishes excellence in the aesthetic sense of its material, a plot to make us occupied and constantly question the reality of the scene and a pay off which is not a prop but a deep revelation combining the possibility of everything, yet being human under the act of superior power.