An American-Australian Sci-Fi Movie, Dark City (1998)

Next, I am going to discuss with you another film that I watched which is Dark City (1998) by Alex Poyas. I was very impressed for this movie because it seems like not made in 1998 but in this 21st century. The technique to shoot every angle were really good and modern which fulfilled as a Sci-Fi movie. 







Synopsis
       The story began with John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) woke up from amnesia. He was told by Dr. Daniel Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) to escape from a group of man with bald head who stole human memory and created the world as they wish at every 12 o'clock of midnight. John started to find the truth and found out the city remained dark all the time which everyone would fell asleep at 12. How John save the world and everyone in the city? Will he survive from those men? 

Timeline of Movement
      From what I watched this movie, the building looks like 60s. Most of the skin of the building was old. Also, the road in this movie just like old paved road which still can see in some of countries which have old street. Besides this, the things that they used to call people was also old like you need to turn circle for each number you want to dial. 

      Just like what I mentioned in previous blog, the man would wear suit to show the characteristic of a man. What the only difference that I discussed before was this movie had different prop compared to the Hong Kong movie. Most of men in Dark City would usually wear hat because it can help to improve the term of German Expressionism and it also shows that the man's costume during old time. 

French Impressionism
       The history context for this term was in between 1919 until 1928. From the book Film Art An Introduction 10th edition where the page 472 with line 22-23 written by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, they stated that impressionism was an avant-garde style that operated largely within the film industry. There are some characteristics of french impressionism which can use in this movie. 

       First of all, it not only explores in psychological causes but also gives a narration considerable psychological depth. For example, John lost his memory because of the injection by the doctor. Because of losing his memory, it will give psychological depth to the audience to think of what the situation was John experienced that time. 

       Next, french impressionism manipulates plot time and subjectivity by showing flashbacks or memories. So, which part we can see from Dark City? It was the scene when John started to struggle with his uncle and to think back of his childhood time and Shell Beach, the place that he born.  

       After that, french impressionism's characteristic also included some of visual depiction of mental states through cinematography and editing. For example, John opened his eyes when he was waking up from injection. In the middle of opening his eyes, the visuals of the scene got blur and this is wants to show the dizzy of John. 

       Other examples will be the rhythmic editing which means most of the scene is shot in continuity but not jump cut where it is to show John's experience and cam movement is smooth when John was talking with Inspector in car because of the camera was tied in the car.   

German Expressionism
       German Expressionism was the filmic style that emerged in Germany from 1919-1926 and it influenced by expressionist movement in modern art of early 1900s. It has several themes which can represent the term such as revolt, self-analysis, madness, primitive and sexual savagery. Although there are a lot of themes, only some of them can be seen in this movie.


       For example, revolt has the close meaning of betray where we can see from doctor that how he provided excuses to avoid the group of bald head man to reach their wishes. For self-analysis and madness, it can see from John where he analyses the problem that people faced and he got mad because of the overact from the bad guys. Then, the last one will be the sexual savagery where we can see from the beginning scene which there was a dead woman body with naked.


     For dark city, the set design is most apparent which everything looks clear in the scene and the light considered as chiaroscuro where darkness of the city and the brightness at the last scene. Yet, there are also some styles like oblique camera angle when framing the planet that people lived, the distorted bodies and shapes by the changing building, the gothic look for the group of man with bald head, high-contrast lighting usually seen in this movie because most the scene framed in dark time and content is surreal because of the make up and the action of the characters when they tried to do something. 



The part that I liked

This is the part where the dark town they lived became bright just like in our real life. It tried to show the hope for the dark city. 








The part that I disliked

I personally don't like this photo is because people were forced on something they don't want do. In the movie itself, the injection can erase someone's memory and it will make people to forget who they are and started a new character. I felt very angry when seeing the injection process. 


Conclusion
     In conclusion, dark city reflected us that what will happen when a city does not has sunlight and people keep on changing their role instead of stick to only one character. It was nice to see this film that related to french impressionism and german expressionism which made me learnt a lesson that how they used these two to make the film. Appreciate for reading my blog.  

Reference
Bordwell, David & Thompson, Kristin (2010) Film Art An Introduction, 10th ed., USA: McGraw-Hill