One of the best sci-fi movies I've seen

Rating: 9/10 (13 December 2007)

What I'd personally like to focus on is the theme of the fluidity of identity, a strong theme explored in many great works of fantasy and fiction in general, film noir in particular (e.g. "The Scar", "Tension," "Gilda"). Here we have a brilliant twist on the old amnesia story  our hero John Murdock's (Rufus Sewell) memories weren't lost because of some trauma or neurosis/psychosis, but rather he never had those memories because he actually avoided a trauma and a neurosis tailor-made for him by alien interlopers called The Strangers. In the course of the film the characters piece together reality from the bits left behind every night by the Strangers. The crux of the story is the same as the object of the Strangers' experiment  the nature of the human soul, specifically free will, the role that experiences or conditioning play in our decision making process. If you give a regular man the memories of a serial killer, will he continue to act as a killer or to what extent will his "nature" assert itself? The Strangers do realize that man is more than the sum of his experiences, but they need to know what exactly causes that difference. It really gets interesting when one of the Strangers, Mr. Hand, injects himself with the memories that were supposed to be John Murdock's, and actually becomes the killer. Taking up Mr. Ebert's suggestion that Mr. Hand represents the Jungian dark self or shadow of the hero (a fairly obvious conclusion), the film seems to be making a refreshingly optimistic statement about the importance of the conscious rational mind over and above the irrational unconscious.
This film seems at first overly stylized and derivative, but after the secret is revealed we realize why this is so  heck you could even argue that the Strangers watched "Metropolis," "Naked City" etc. and formed their ideas about human society through them though such a conceit is hardly necessary: the Strangers are drawing from various epochs in human history and perhaps they are deliberately trying to give the humans an atmosphere both recognizable and alien. After all, if you were seeking the mystery of the soul it would hardly do to simply look at one period of time or one particular culture. It's also clear the director is using the image of the circles not just as a metaphor for the story and the process of self-discovery that forms the core of the drama, but also as a way of explaining how and why the city was built. The city might resemble aspects of both the "real" and "romantic" 1940s  1960s city simply as a result of the natural process of adding up and combining all the pieces of memory and impression used as building blocks in its creation. Form mirrors content upon accumulation of details, in other words.
I also really agree with Ebert's point that the reason some of these performances might seem shallow is because here we have actors who are working with characters that don't have any real memories. As such, method acting would actually be inappropriate. I like the idea that they are forming their real personalities based on the experiences they've actually had in real life, which is to say the events we've seen in the film itself. I had an interesting event that happened to me the other day that sheds some light on this, for me anyway. I went into my favorite burrito place here in Oakland, a place I visit almost every week. I walked through the restaurant and went up to the counter to order my food, and then someone slapped me on the back. I turn and see one of my best friends in the world standing there laughing. And it occurred to me later  how could I possibly not see my best friend sitting there at the table? It's because we're in "city-mode" when we're moving about the city doing things  very focused on what we're doing and adopting a sort of glazed indifference to the chaos around us as a defense mechanism. And thinking about this movie, it seems to me that what we're seeing is really an exaggerated version of the normal reality of city life such as what I experienced the other day. Consider how the other characters in the story don't even think about the fact that they don't have any specific memories and can't tell anyone how to get to Shell Beach. They are just more or less doing what they need to do, running through the maze the Strangers have set up for them. Go into the automat, push the button, get what you need. Sadly this is very recognizable I'm sure to most people today, particularly those of us who live in the city. This film is reminding us to stay awake and constantly question authority and reality. It is also reminding us of how much of life and reality we miss every day simply by getting so focused on our own immediate needs and fears. These characters in this story pass each other in the night  they really do touch each other, even through the fog of cynicism and predatory sex and violence that lie at the heart of Dark City and film noir itself. And to whatever extent the film is successful, they touch us as well. I don't think the film was trying to make a metaphysical/philosophical argument, but simply to remind us (as did some of the best episodes of "Twilight Zone" and the film "Blade Runner") that there's more to being human than simply satisfying our needs and wants, even though living in the city sometimes it feels like that's all anyone is capable of.