100 Movies Every Catholic Should See #137: Dark City (1998)

Directed by Alex Proyas. Starring Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, and Kiefer Sutherland.

(Spoilers ahead)

Have you ever had a dream where you became conscious of the fact that you were dreaming and tried to wake yourself up, running around in your head attempting to regain consciousness? Such is the nighttime experience that Dark City recreates in jaw-dropping fashion. A sci-fi retooling of Plato’s allegory of the Cave that seamlessly blends multiple genres and styles, director Alex Proyas’ underseen thrill ride is a precursor to The Matrix, Inception, and other sci-fi classics that play with the fabric of reality and explore what it means to be human. As widely seen as these more popular films are, it is this reviewer’s humble opinion that Dark City’s cinematic vision is flawless, even superior to what has come after it, and stands as one of the most visually audacious and psychologically intriguing science fiction films of the nineties.

Basing the titular city’s design on German Expressionist silent cinema like the works of Fritz Lang (both M and Metropolis feel visually present in this), and inspired by the WWII-era paintings of Edward Hopper depicting urban nightlife, the film immerses the viewer in a perpetually shadowed cityscape that lives and breathes; a masterpiece of practical design and sparingly-used cgi that feels hyper-specific yet out-of-time, like an eerie dream come to uncanny life. It certainly owes some visual inspiration to Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner as well as the sci-fi works of Terry Gilliam like Brazil, but production designer Patrick Tatopoulos uses these familiar sci-fi and noir visuals to craft a tone that feels wholly unique, rooted in multiple cinematic traditions but daring to take these visual themes to unexpected places.

The story begins in traditional noir fashion where a man named Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) wakes up in a dark room with no memory, only to learn he is wanted for murder. Receiving a call from the mysterious Doctor Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) who gives him instructions on what to do next, Murdoch begins stumbling around the city and tries to regain his memories as he is pursued by the police. But the police are not the only ones after Murdoch, and he soon finds himself face-to-face with mysterious pale beings dressed all in black who have a secret agenda of their own. Trying to prove his innocence to the police inspector (William Hurt) and evading the frightening pale men, he contacts the woman who may be his wife (Jennifer Connelly) to get a clearer impression of who he was before he lost his memories. But as it turns out, no one in the city seems to remember much of anything, leading Murdoch to realize that his own foggy memories may be untrustworthy, imprinted on him by someone else.

Comparisons to Neo from The Matrix are inevitable, especially when Murdoch realizes he is living in a type of artificial world and can influence reality with only his will (called “tuning” here), and must fight an alien enemy who seeks to keep humanity oppressed for their own agenda. But while The Matrix is an action film with philosophical themes, Dark City is much more philosophy-focused with a few action scenes interspersed, and doesn’t provide the tidy hero’s journey of Neo, though heroism is still given a chance. Instead, Dark City lets Murdoch, along with the viewer, slowly discover the full nature of this dream world, a truth that only Murdoch can seek out with limited help from anyone around him.

What Alex Proyas brilliantly achieves is a sci-fi extension of a traditional noir plot, where the quest for truth leads the protagonist to confront harsh realities about his existence, and the existence of those around him. The classic mystery setup gives Proyas room to explore the implications of Plato’s Cave and the people who live in perpetual darkness, with only shadows on the wall to provide explanations for reality. The expressionist cityscape is one massive shadow, unquestioned by its citizens, giving people a life that makes enough sense to get by. Enter the noir protagonist who wakes up and realizes something is amiss, discovers that something exists beyond the shadows, and dares to investigate what is happening outside the cave. This theme of manipulated reality has been explored countless times in cinema, from The Truman Show to The Village, but in Dark City, the eye-popping production design and cinematography also lend themselves to this theme and let the viewer experience artificial reality as suffocatingly sinister, a world of night where the ability to wake up has been eliminated, or so they think.

Murdoch becomes a messenger figure similar to the one Plato described in his cave allegory; one who discovers the higher reality and has a desire to share that truth with others still in the cave, though Dark City doesn’t immediately become a triumphant story where characters embrace higher truth. Plato acknowledged that some citizens comfortable with the shadows would reject the truth or even become violent if their understanding of reality was shattered, and while the movie doesn’t completely reach that point, it subtly hints that the exposure to truth will have to be gradual. Even Murdoch himself has limited ability to pursue the fullness of truth, as his life in the shadows is the only life that he knows, though the movie gives hope that he is beginning a newfound journey towards true enlightenment. Dark City’s villains have kept the city’s citizens in stagnation, experimenting on their minds and memories like lab rats, imprinting thoughts and memories instead of letting the citizens have freedom. In the villains’ attempt to understand humanity through manipulating the material world, they failed to understand the higher spiritual reality of man’s soul. This is the higher reality that Murdoch sees, present in his desire for a real relationship with the woman he loves, present in his desire for true understanding about existence, and present in his wish for others to escape the shadows and experience the light.

Though it follows a grim plotline with frightening villain sequences, Proyas ultimately crafts a hopeful story where manipulated darkness cannot extinguish the light of humanity. Like the best science fiction stories, Dark City depicts a powerful human resiliency, and hope of real freedom found in the pursuit of truth.

(Note: The Director’s Cut has small but distinct differences that make it the better version.)