Dark Days
(Documentary)
Picture:
C Sound: B- Extras: B Film: B
There is a
constant shame on our society that we have an inexcusable and cleverly hidden
problem with homelessness. It does not
help when you have ignorant, insulting hustlers who pretend to be so, just to
get money and not have to work.
Producer/director Marc Singer finds plenty of the real homeless in Dark Days, exposing an unreal
underground settlement of such persons in New York.
The year was 2000, a year before 9/11/01’s nightmare events and just as
George Bush wound up the President.
Considering the Clinton Years had all that prosperity, it looks like it
was not as beneficial as it appeared.
The
location is below the world-known Penn Station, which it turns out to have been
a place these people have literally fallen through the cracks into for over a
quarter century. In speaking of crack,
the drug bearing that name is among the normal ways of life below. One homeless man says the population using
crack alone is at least 80%! They one
had water, but they still have rats, poverty, loneliness and no end of
darkness. The film simply unrolls the
story in the best possible manner, masterfully edited and paced.
You might
think this would be so outright depressing that it would be unwatchable, but
Singer uses very dark and grainy black and white footage (even above ground) to
form the film’s own enclosed world. This
is not the smooth black and white of Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, but something much more raw and unpolished. It is even darker and grainier than Darren
Aronofsky’s Pi (1998). More on that in a moment.
Besides
showing the underworld these people now live in, it also trends to mirror the
atmosphere of apathy and loss these people have found their lives in. They have actually become accustomed to
enough of an extent, though not happily by any means, to tolerate what are
flat-out sub-human living standards.
Though they are fighting to make the best of being stuck, in part by
building advanced shanty homes, all we can do is watch in disbelief. After watching it is hard to forget what will
only go away and get resolved when the society decides to not allow anyone to
have to go through this. The film does
not offer any solutions, and any that are available are never going to be
simple. It gets more interesting when
Amtrak sends armed police to clear the area out, which lead to the real life
endings for all concerned.
The
anamorphically enhanced 16 X 9 (1.78 X 1) image is average, but is supposed to
look degraded and grainy, so there is not a transfer problem. Singer did his own camera work, shooting with
the homeless as a film crew in 16mm Kodak film.
The way the grain transferred is actually a sign of how good the
transfer is. The sound options include Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo and a surprise 5.1 AC-3 mix, which has limited LFE subwoofer
activity. It is practically 5.0, even
with the appropriate score by DJ Shadow, one of the world’s premiere
turntablists/music artists.
The
extras include a detailed (if not non-stop) commentary by Singer, 15 cut
scenes, text on the NYC tunnels, cast and crew, a follow-up section on all
those we meet in the film, the trailer for this film, and a making of segment
that tells the remarkable making of this remarkable film.
This film
has deservedly won multiple awards, but that did not give it the mass exposure
it deserves. If you ever get the chance
to see this film, go out of your way to sit through it and not be deterred by
expectations the surface of it may give to you.
I cannot lie and say this was easy going, but tuning out while watching
is like not watching at all. It is worth
getting involved with, as far as you can take it. Dark
Days is one of the most underrated documentary achievements in years.
- Nicholas Sheffo
