prgarrett-12208

Alex Proyas's 1998 movie succeeds in turning banal tropes into something close to magical. With major cinematic nods to Fritz Lang's _Metropolis_, David Lynch's (disastrous but stylistically influential) _Dune_, and _The Matrix_, (and even _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_ and _The Empire Strikes Back_) _Dark City_ cleverly transposes a graphic novel format into a film populated by live actors, while paying reference to New Weird novels including M John Harrison's _Viriconium_ series, Jeff Vandermeer's _Finch_, and China Miéville's _Perdido Street Statio_ and, particularly, _The City and the City_. In turn, its own influence is clear and can be traced into contemporary drama including _The Man in the High Castle_, _Altered Carbon_ and _Mr Robot_.

The work isn't driven either by plot or by character: the narrative structure knowingly obfuscates a fairly simple plot, and William Hurt (especially), Rufus Sewell, Jennifer Connelly and even Kiefer Sutherland (who I'm certain could have been allowed more licence for subtlety, if that's within his range) manage to bring presence and authority to stock characters. Similarly, the dialogue is mostly borrowed from noir novels, but is delivered in a way that seems both weighty and, occasionally, witty; and the portentious Trevor Jones soundtrack is balanced by delicious mambo vignettes of jazz classics sung apparently by Jennifer Connelly (but actually by Anita Kelsey).

What makes this movie succeed is its style. The watcher is drawn into a narrative that moves with apparent complexity through a cinematically stunning milieu, with superbly arranged and photographed sets, and is, as a result, utterly caught up in the moment: the illusion of subtlety is at least adequate compensation for the actual lack of depth.

The overly dramatic and sentimental finale is a let down but, overall, highly recommended.

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Superbly atmospheric rendition, beautifully photographed and with strong characters. The first episode would surely be confusing for those not familiar with the book, but even then, the air of mystery and menace is so compelling that they must also be drawn in. Techniques that seem crude on the surface - blurring of part of an image to indicate that it's not culturally possible to perceive it, umlauts and other diacritics on signs in English - work surprisingly well. David Morrissey's gestures are sometimes a little irritating, especially his over-frequent technique of grimacing while he places one hand over his eyes to indicate that he's seeing something he shouldn't be seeing. Mandeep Dhillon great. Dominik Scherrer's soundtrack disappointing. An indication of how a two state solution could turn out? Loved it, but consider reading the novel first.