The A posteriori le cinema series is an opportunity to celebrate the 7e art by revisiting key titles that celebrate important anniversaries.
The demonstration is well established: in the cinema, “originality” rarely rhymes, alas, with “popularity”. If there are exceptions, such as the recent Everything Everywhere All at Once (Everything everywhere all at once), often the formatted proposals win. And all the rave reviews in the world can’t change that. However, it happens that one of these singular films later finds its audience, an audience so fervent and passionate that the said film becomes cult. This is the case of DarkCity (dark city), a science fiction drama by Alex Proyas which premiered 25 years ago in February 1998.
We follow a mysterious guy (Rufus Sewell) who, from the first minutes, wakes up in a shabby hotel room with the corpse of a young woman. He doesn’t remember her… or who he is. His name would be John Murdoch, and besides the worried wife he doesn’t recognize (Jennifer Connelly) and the melancholic detective who tracks him down (William Hurt), the amnesiac protagonist has disturbing characters with incredible gifts on his heels. Gifts that John seems immune to.
We quickly discover that these sinister “Outsiders” are constantly reconfiguring the city by inoculating each inhabitant with a new memory manufactured by a slave scientist (Kiefer Sutherland). Their goal ? Discover the source of human individuality in order to save their own endangered species.
It’s a triumph of art direction, set design, cinematography, special effects and imagination.
When adding the work to his repertoire of great moviesthe late Roger Ebert wrote in 2005: DarkCityby Alex Proyas, resembles its great silent predecessor Metropolis in its questioning of what makes us human, and in its realization that this cannot be changed by fiat. Both films are about fictitious worlds created to fabricate ideal societies, and in both cases the machinery of the rulers is destroyed by the hearts of the people being ruled. »
At the time of the release, in 1998, Ebert was in this case one of the main champions of the film, hailing in Chicago Sun-Times “a visionary accomplishment”: “Such an original and exciting film, it fired my imagination like Metropolis And 2001: A Space Odyssey [2001. L’odyssée de l’espace] […] It’s a triumph of art direction, set design, cinematography, special effects and imagination. »
Hypnotic and haunting
Regarding this all-out visual “triumph”, it should be noted that the film is bathed in a bewitching atmosphere of expressionism and film noir. Retrofuturist, the aesthetics of DarkCity evokes the 1930s as much as the 1940s or 1950s. CineFantasyAlex Proyas confided during post-production that he wanted to evoke an action taking place “everywhere and nowhere”.
This bias is in phase with the narrative concept, in that the Foreigners have built a vast urban simulacrum, a pastiche of a metropolis whose inhabitants are nothing but guinea pigs.
In this respect, the film skilfully mixes up august neuroses. One thinks here of this feeling of alienation which sometimes manifests itself, fleetingly, of this inexplicable impression of having no control over one’s destiny, even of not leading the life one should. Echoing this psychological phenomenon, John declares in one scene that he is “living through someone else’s nightmare” (the use of miniatures and first-generation digital effects only amplifies the ambient artificiality).
The film therefore proves Albert Einstein right when he maintained that “God does not play dice”, with the notable difference that Foreigners replace Nature, of which the genius spoke. And the latter to visit the sleeping citizens by their care by injecting them with new or recycled memories… This after an impressive underground mechanism had caused buildings to spring from the ground, had absorbed others, and had transformed the appearance of buildings and houses in a striking architectural ballet.
To return to Roger Ebert, the praise of what was then the most influential American critic was not enough to arouse the curiosity of the masses – for the record, titanic, released the previous December, was still at the top of the box office, far ahead of its competitors. Admittedly, not all the criticisms were of this tenor, but Ebert was not alone in his camp, far from it.
For example, in San Francisco ChroniclePeter Stack affirmed, in connection with the formal approach of the film: [Dark City] rewrites the rules of cinema […] It’s hypnotic, haunting and, of course, dark. It’s one of the most memorable cinematic adventures of recent years. »
In France, even Les Inrockuptiblesnot immediately the target audience, said well, as if with regret: “ DarkCity is to date the most exact cinematographic transcription of the universe of Philip K. Dick. Paradoxical assertion, since DarkCity is an original screenplay and that it is directed by Alex Proyas, a young director from the music video from which nothing good was expected after The Crow. »
No offense to the Inrocks, The Crow (The crow), which is about to be the subject of a remakehas also become a cult.
Pictorial influences
As for DarkCity, its ability to stimulate the mind — and entertain — remains unchanged 25 years later. Moreover, helping hindsight, it is interesting to note that the film was not the only one to have for hero a character prisoner without his knowledge of an artificial world.
We obviously think of The Truman Show (The Truman Show), by Peter Weir, which opened a few months later. Like John Murdoch, Truman Burbank gradually discovers that the universe around him is only a studio and that behind the scenes, a despot is pulling the strings. In a fascinating coincidence, the sea is a recurring motif in both films: it constitutes both an impassable limit and a promise of freedom.
Visually, however, The Truman Show And DarkCity are distinct in everything. Where the first resembles an imagery of the dazzling American way of life as immortalized by Norman Rockwell, the second, in addition to the already mentioned influences of film noir and German expressionism, summons the noctambulism of Edward Hopper.
And unlike DarkCity, The Truman Show had no trouble drawing the crowds, although the presence of a Jim Carrey at the height of his glory should not have hurt.
The following year, another film sharing many similarities with DarkCity stormed the cinemas, where it was a huge success: The Matrix (The matrix), by Lana and Lilly Wachowski. For the record, The Matrix was filmed in Sydney in the same studios as DarkCityof which he reused decorations: it could not be more appropriate.
Be that as it may, perhaps ultimately the financial failure of DarkCity will he have had any good. Because, on the contrary, precisely, of The Matrix, whose impact has been diluted over less and less successful sequels, the deleterious charm of Alex Proyas’ film continues to operate. It should be noted that in 2008, the filmmaker assembled a “director’s montage” (“ director’s cut ”) even more satisfying. Announced in 2021, a series based on the film is in the works.
To Roger Ebert, who will have been the film’s most enthusiastic admirer, the final word: “If it is true, as the German director Werner Herzog thinks, that we live in an age hungry for new images, then DarkCity is a film that nourishes us. »