The night never ends here.

Rating: 7/10 (2 August 2016)

The world of Dark City is frighteningly realised. It starts, in usual noir fashion, with a man abruptly waking up in a strange, dingy room with a stranger phonecall heeding a warning. He has no memory of his past or identity, but is asked to be the protagonist and be on the run almost immediately. Slowly the pieces are drawn together. The film's title is quite literal. The rain-streaked streets are practically allergic to lights, except for a few briefly flickering neon lights, feebly trying to stave off the darkness. Interiors have a sickly, alien green tinge that seems to emanate from no visible source, and the walls close in claustrophobically on John Murdoch (the plot becomes one of those typical mysteries where we start with a phrase or name and slowly unravel the puzzle). And its inhabitants speak strangely, for the few that are not content to namelessly shuffle on by. The barman, or rather the hotel man, bellows profusely but others no information. He says things like "cash on the barrelhead". What time period are we in? We do not know, and neither does John Murdoch.
The best of the science fiction films draw us in immediately, and this is what Dark City does. It pieces together familiar elements from other stories and genres, but leaves a darker trail for us to follow, one which creates unease and disillusionment at every shadowy corner. Many of us will recognise the femme fatale type with her sultry voice, serenading what is left of the nightly crowd. Connelly's eyes have a piercing beauty, although the rest of her body seems stiff, and her hips do not swing in the same way we expect them to. Is this a limitation of her performance, or simply a byproduct of living in Dark City? Murdoch does not have time to find out. He is being chased by men shrouded in dark, with pale, ivory skin and gleaming daggers. They seem only humanoid in appearance. In one of the film's most sinister moments, everyone but Murdoch falls asleep at midnight, and the buildings and walls themselves begin to shift and morph into different shapes. The effects are done with extreme care; the city becomes a massive, hulking superstructure with a mind of its own, brainwashing and altering story lines and identities, the very concrete facts that Murdoch has painlessly uncovered. It recalls the very essence of German Expressionism, and how the city is like a physical representation of Murdoch's own psyche, as twisted and unsettling as regime he has stumbled upon. The intent is very Orwellian, and like a Winston Smith, he can do nothing but watch it happen.
The story is strongly reminiscent of The Matrix, which was released a year later. Both feature a special and unique individual who has the bandages over his eyes ripped off to face an eerie dystopia and an impossible task. The latter is cleverer; it made a dystopia out of an apparent utopia, fear out of perfection and clean surfaces. And the action is slicker, more precise, more orientated - it helps when you have superpowers and can call in a small army of guns. The impact of Dark City is more visceral, more immediate. It is almost certain that what lies behind the brick wall is not the sun-kissed Shell Beach, and we can feel the collective despair of the emptiness of the dark blotches of space. There's an allegorical message in there somewhere if you dig deep enough, but it's muddled within the plot. So it has to finish with spectacle, but at least it is large-scale and of the best kind.