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Dark City
Rufus Sewell is an amnesiac wanted for murder in Alex Proyas's science fiction-flavoured film noir
Imagine a world where The Matrix had its thunder stolen by another picture about men and machines, and memory and identity. What's more, this other film, the one that pips Larry and Andy Wachowski, is shot at the same studios as the brothers' now-superfluous masterpiece, is made utilising similarly ground-breaking technology, and even uses some of the same locations. Fanciful as this might sound, had circumstances been different Alex Proyas's Dark City rather than The Matrix might have been championed as the breakthrough sci-fi film of the late 1990s. Likewise, had the dice rolled differently, we may have come to view Proyas himself as the great visionary of the new millennium rather than the siblings who're so tight-lipped, they make Marcel Marceau look like a livestock salesman. If its story bares similarities to the Matrix series, the problems that kept Dark City from finding an audience are not unlike those experienced by another significant science fiction film, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Having spent a fortune on the picture, the execs at New Line looked at Proyas's final cut and decided it was unintelligible. The director was subsequently forced to remove material from the picture which he felt undid crucial aspects of the storyline and, worst still, had to add a voiceover which would rob the early reels of their mystery. No doubt tired of fighting with their director, New Line then proceeded to release the film in a style more akin to flushing. If the producers hoped Dark City would simply go away, they were to be frustrated by the small but ardent cult that sprung up around the picture. Asked to name his movie of 1998, 'Chicago Sun-Times' critic Roger Ebert had no hesitation in nominating Dark City. Proyas's movie also found a following on home video and a strange new medium known as DVD. Such loyalty has led to the film being granted special edition status in 2008. Commentaries, featurettes, cut footage - if you've never seen Dark City before, this is the version to catch. And if you already love this beguiling picture, the restoration of excised scenes - including the reinstatement of a key plotline involving Melissa George's hooker and the ditching of that voiceover - mean that you can now see the film as Proyas always intended. The all new, completely unexpurgated Dark City is quite a piece of work. Though its star Rufus Sewell has been dreadful in everything from Extreme Ops to The Legend Of Zorro, here he is quite superb as John Murdoch, an amnesiac wanted for murder. Estranged from his wife Emma (Connelly) and pursued by old school detective Frank Bumstead (Hurt), Murdoch finds himself thigh-deep in Raymond Chandler territory - except Philip Marlowe was rarely called upon to battle extra-dimensional beings who are bent on understanding the complexities of the human soul. A remarkable combination of gumshoe thriller and heady science fiction fantasy, Dark City, with its nods to everyone from Escher to Edward Hopper, is as heady as it is indescribable. While it's tough to talk about the picture without giving away its compelling secrets, it's worth stressing that, as Proyas points up in his brief introduction, Dark City is anything but a style-over-substance exercise. Beguiling to look at it might be but this is a film as obsessed with the mind and the soul as aesthetics. With its emphasis on heightened reality - this is a film in which buildings 'grow' in an instant - it's no surprise that not all of the performers keep up with the material. In a brave attempt to stretch himself, Keifer Sutherland finds himself all at sea as Dr Schreber, the ailing shrink who might know the secret to Murdoch's missing identity. But if his is a forced, tick-heavy performance, Richard O'Brien, Ian Richardson and Bruce Spence, while every bit as mannered, are quite superb as the Strangers, the mystery men who occupy the remotest corners of Dark City's very dark heart. Less a film than a vivid nightmare, to describe Dark City as Alex Proyas's best movie is to understate its barely-tapped power. To chance upon it is to make a discovery almost as brain-frying as the one Murdoch makes mid-way through the film. To revisit it is to be rewarded time after time. Just remember, never talk to strangers. Verdict One of the great 'lost' films of the 1990s, Dark City has a lot in common with Blade Runner - and is a good enough movie not to be crippled by the comparison. |
