Film Studies - Dark City [W9 Review]

Dark City is an 1998 American-Australian neo-noir science-fiction film directed by Alex Proyas. This movie is influenced by German Expressionism as it have oblique camera angles, high contrast lighting that creates dramatic shadows and its content is about unnatural and gothic. The message in film is different people will have different ideas and perspective view to their own life.

German Expressionism is a filmic style that emerged in Germany within year 1919 to1926. It is influenced by the Expressionist movement in modern art of early 1900s. Common themes of German Expressionism are revolt, self-analysis, madness, primitive and sexual savagery.

Dark City begin with its protagonist, John Murdoch awake in a bloody bathtub. John couldn't remember any of his memory and is suspected to be a serial killer. He is later pursued by several stranger who own the power "tuning" and a strange doctor, Dr. Schreber, who helps him to recover his memory and escape from those weird stranger. John reclaim his wallet and learn his full name and is married to a woman called Emma. During an escape, John discovered his have same the same power as those strangers and notice odd things in the city, there is no daylight and memories of the civilians is confusing. John then gain help from Burnstead, Emma and Dr. Schreber to defeat the strangers. As the cost of defeating the strangers, all civilian of the city including Emma will lost their memory, but John does not regret his choice. In the end of the film, John meet Emma again at the Shell Beach with her new identity, Anna, they both introduce themselves to each other and restart their new relationship and life.

Dark City has show several characteristics of German Expressionism, which is high contrast lighting is applied in the very beginning of the film. High contrast lighting which is also known as low key contrast is usually used in a horror film to create dramatic shadows. It is the before the scene of the protagonist, John lying  in the bathtub with his clothes arranged neatly at the toilet bowl, the light bulb has flickered left to right to draws audience interest to know what is going to happen in the next.

Another example of high key contrast is the strangers in this film is always have a pale looking makeup. High contrast lightning is applied to show the strangers is the villain in the film.

Oblique camera angles is found in the part when the clock strikes at 12, the time will stop. Civilians of the city will automatically fell asleep, the strangers will take this opportunity to rearrange the shape of the building and reset civilians memory. The motive of the strangers doing this experiments is to observe how human lives in different kind of situation in order of themselves to become human by imitate their memories.

In the beginning of the movie, there is a scene in Dr. Scherber lab where a mice is running inside a maze. This scene this scene has used low-key contrast and is a metaphor that the whole city is under the observation and control under the strangers.

In conclusion, the great thing in this film is John does not follow the footsteps of those strangers, which is to control the memory of the civilians to learn to be himself. Instead he decide to accept the new life and relationship that he is going to face in future.

References
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/
http://filmtank.org/forum/forum/film-development/films/796-dark-city-alex-proyas-1998-what-does-it-all-mean