Dark City is truly unclassifiable: it is part fantasy, part science-fiction, part film noir, part Kafkaesque nightmare. What it is, though, is a gripping vision of an almost unfilmable idea. By the time the movie has ended, it was become a moving fable, if one without a moral.
Criticism of Dark City has been and will continue to be polarized. Every review I have read has either raved about it or condemned it: there is no middle ground. I loved Dark City. I believe it to be the best movie since 1996's Lone Star. Will you agree with me, or with those critics that are panning it loudly? The only way to be certain is to find out the reasons why I loved it.
I love all the genres that Dark City borrows from. Noir detective yarns, adaptations of Kafka, science fiction, fantasy, I love them all. I love the dilapidated, gothic look as seen in movies like Batman and City of Lost Children. I love surreal movies, like those I named at the beginning of the review. I like films that go beyond being simple narratives and become allegories. I love it when realistic elements of human nature are used in films of fantastic and patently unrealistic happenings. Based on my likes and dislikes, perhaps you can choose for yourself if Dark City is right for you or not. But if you do have a desire to see it, I urge you to go to your theater now, don't wait for it to come out on video. I fear Dark City will lose a great deal in the translation to the small screen.
Dark City is the story of man without a memory (Rufus Sewell), who wakes up in a hotel room with the body of a dead woman. The phone rings, and he is told to leave immediately, or else he will be captured. Gradually, he comes to learn a few things about himself: he is married, his name is John Murdoch, and he is wanted for murder. He is chased by the police, by a mysterious doctor (Kiefer Sutherland), and by an enigmatic group of aliens identically dressed in bowler hats, black overcoats, and white face paint.
The only way Murdoch can think of clearing his name of the murder charge is to recover his memory. Memory is a general problem in Dark City: Murdoch has none, while everyone else's memory is grainy at best. Nobody can remember how to get out of the city, and nobody can remember the last time the sun rose.
The city is ruled over by aliens who are called Strangers. The Strangers lack individual identity, but they have other powers to make up for that. Most important is their power to alter physical reality through the force of sheer will: they call this "tuning." Every night at midnight, the Strangers stop time, put all (well, almost all) the city residents to sleep, and alter the city anew for their nefarious, mysterious purposes. Buildings pop out of the ground like mushrooms, while others disappear. The only humans who realize the truth about the whole situation are Murdoch and the mysterious Dr. Schreber (Sutherland), who may or may not be allied with the aliens.
Meanwhile, Inspector Bumstead (William Hurt) is investigating the murders that Murdoch is believed to have committed. Bumstead and Murdoch's chanteuse wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly), believe him to be innocent, and together try to solve the mysteries of Dark City.
I found the film to be oddly contrived at first, but later explanations made those early scenes completely plausible and satisfying. Perhaps liking Dark City depends on the viewer's ability to suspend disbelief. If you are able to enjoy science fiction, then you should at least be capable of enjoying Dark City.
This film is Alex Proyas' baby. Besides directing it, he wrote the original story, co-wrote the screenplay, and co-produced the whole venture. The cast is strong with one major exception: Kiefer Sutherland is horribly miscast as the asthmatic and enigmatic Dr. Schreber. Perhaps the producers confused him with his father. The role itself should work. Played by a graver actor, Dr. Schreber could be a character combining both menace and pity. If only Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, or Klaus Kinski were alive today to assume the role. Sewell, in the lead, is well-cast in such a Kafkaesque movie. His handsome-but-ordinary looks make him the perfect "K" type.
The production design, by George Liddle and Patrick Tatopoulos, is absolutely remarkable. Perhaps it is derivative of the surreal films of our time, but one can hardly be faulted for stealing from the best, can one? Hopefully the Academy will be able to remember as far back as February for next year's awards. But then again, Blade Runner didn't win any Oscars, either.
In the fable that is Dark City, the moral may not be much (to paraphrase a line from Total Recall: You are what you do, not what you remember), but it is the telling of the tale that is most rewarding.
Four stars
Copyright 1998 by Dale G. Abersold
