Coach Clay's Quote of the Day

"Believe it or not, I can actually draw."

- Jean Michel Basquiat -

Not Dark Yet: A Movie Review

In the last months of the twentieth century, a group of movies came out that shared a common theme of unplugging from society and waking up to a new reality.

Instinct, a mostly unnoticed film based on ideas from the great Daniel Quinn novel Ishmael, looks at the history of our civilization through the eyes of a humbled scientist and gives its characters the freedom to create a better one. American Beauty, the eventual Oscar winner for Best Picture of 1999, follows (very honestly) the results of a white-collar suburbanite's rejection of his life situation. And who could forget Keanu Reeves literally pulling the machines' tubes out of his body in The Matrix, a film that would become the Star Wars of many Generation X-ers' adult years?

Approaching my graduation from college at this time, I was ripe for influences such as these to take hold. Indeed, in August of 2000 I would board a plane at a tiny airport in Appleton, Wisconsin--the place of my upbringing--and days later arrive in a hillside village along the Yukon River in Alaska--the place of my unplugging.

A couple weeks ago, I saw a film from just slightly before this period that also explores plug-pulling and eye-opening, and you know what? Call me nostalgic for the late '90s, but I love a good story that shows a character taking charge of their life by shirking what is "safe", and Dark City (1998) just might be the best of the bunch.

The basic premise goes like this: a man (Rufus Sewell) wakes up one morning naked in a bathtub, only to find out he has a severe case of amnesia, with an added bummer: not only does he have no inkling of his identity or of any past whatsoever, but he also sees a recently slain woman on the floor. Soon enough, he manages to 1) put some clothes on and 2) find out that his name is John Murdoch. Unfortunately, he also finds out that he is a serial killer who has recently murdered six prostitutes, and is therefore being hunted by the local law enforcement (William Hurt).

As if that wasn't enough, John is also being contacted by a disturbing, odd doctor promising answers (Kiefer Sutherland), chased by eerie-looking dudes in trenchcoats, and eats vending machine Jell-O for dinner. To boot, the woman who claims to be his wife (Jennifer Connelly) informs him that she cheated on him. Talk about a guy ready to detach from society.

Of course, this is just the beginning, and it is in the unraveling of his existence that John comes to discover the true nature of Dark City. Likewise, it is in the unraveling of Dark City's existence that John comes to discover his own true nature. Along the way, we are treated to an enjoyable blend of film noir, mystery, science fiction, and philosophy. Imagine Kafka jumping into bed with Hitchcock.

The characters of Dark City are not action hero caricatures. There is courage in their actions, indeed; but only because they are in fact terribly, deathly afraid of their tormentors. The villains in trenchcoats, simply called "strangers", are Nosferatu-like creatures who both look and act more frightening than anything from The Matrix trilogy.

Alex Proyas masterfully directs characters who exist in the night. (His previous film, The Crow, could have been titled "Dark City" as well.) However, this film pays more of an homage to Saturday afternoon adventure matinees. Even the score seems like it is from the '50s.

As Murdoch, the hero who has woken up in a Kafkaesque nightmare, Sewell does just fine. William Hurt gives his detective-on-the-verge-of-cracking-the-big-case a weight and compassion rarely seen in the sci-fi genre. A pre-24 Kiefer Sutherland plays a quirkier character than I thought was in him. And Jennifer Connelly...well let's just say she had me at Labyrinth.

In the end, it's not a precise plot detail or the perfect delivering of a line that causes a film to speak to something inside us. It's the energy behind those details, the reason the story is being told in the first place. It's the connection we feel with the people in the story. Yes, I truly hope none of you have woken up to find a dead prostitute on your apartment floor, but who hasn't wondered about the mysteries of the lights in our sky, the wonders of similar lights in our minds and hearts? Who hasn't felt the urgent need to wake up from something horrible? From something horribly normal? For if we indeed have the power to defeat that which suppresses us, but instead remain in our safe sockets, who's really doing the damage?

Dark City's residents put the pieces of their mystery together, to be sure, but it's what they do with these pieces that give them true victory.