Simply Perfect

Sick Product of a Sick System

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The documentary Dark Days created by Marc Singer shows a seemingly interesting inside scoop on the lives of the homeless who set up shelter in the New York City Amtrak system. This highly ambitious film was not as moving as one would hope. Singer did not include a variety of shots so I found myself getting bored, quick. The pacing of the film was painfully slow where each shaky hand held clip lasted long enough to lose my attention. I found myself questioning when the movie was ever going to end, it seemed like it never reached a climax and there was no real conflict shown in the film itself. The only scenes that I actually felt emotion for were when two of the homeless folks talked about the horrific events that happened to their children, other than that I slouched in my chair and pleaded for the ending to come soon. Singer had a topic with such high potential but he dropped the ball as far as captivating me visually and keeping me emotionally invested in his film.

I was falling asleep through the first third of this film. I was on the verge of slipping it back into its envelope and sending it back to Netflix, without having watched it through to the end.I have never, ever done that, not even with "Godzilla: Final Wars".But after an overlong introduction, the filmmaker started giving us back-stories--about how these people effectively became homeless, although they don't think of themselves that way. About the drugs and jail time and other personal tragedies that landed them there...where the sun don't shine...literally.And then something completely unexpected happens towards the end; and at first you think--I thought, anyway--that it would be just another tragedy, piled on top of all the rest, and I found myself shaking my head: yeah, these people, they're always going to draw the short straw.And then, to my own great amazement, it didn't work out that way at all. There was a happy ending, after all.I really and truly thought I would hate this film, but was immensely surprised (I don't think I have ever been so surprised by a film) to find that it is in fact very special, and quite wonderful, after all.You WILL be bored beyond caring by the first 20-30 minutes. Stick with it anyways. The ending is worth it.

As we shift through the dark space of their world that is at once claustrophobic and cavernous, we see the mundane rituals of ordinary life play out: cooking, raising pets, cleaning, showering. The men (and one woman) of this film speak of a life lived autonomous from societal intervention. One senses that the filmmaker, and more adamantly the homeless themselves are trying to convince us that here in the subterranean garbage disposal of life, their needs are being met by the trash of the world that is chewed up and spit out. In the film, these leftovers become a metaphor for the people themselves - as they revel in finding a treasure of discarded donuts, or show their opportunist nature by collecting cans for cash to buy heroin. So our waste becomes their livelihood. We see them cook cornbread, they've got TV and radio and a space heater. "We're not homeless," one man tells us, "homeless is when you don't have a home." But then his friend corrects him. "Nah, you're still homeless. You just ain't helpless." But as the film progresses, we start to perceive something in the darkness, something invisible around the edges that keeps them buried underground; it's their addiction to drugs, and the memories of past lives that are fraught with anguish and suffering. They are lost souls - shadow people moving through an ethereal, timeless landscape.

I just came across this gem of a movie on cable last night. I'm not a social activist and I don't particularly have a soft spot in my heart for the homeless. I lived in San Francisco for a while and I got pan handled by at least 20 people a day walking back and forth to the train...usually much more then 20 people , so that made disillusioned pretty quickly. But watching this movie did exactly what Marc Singer set out to do...made me sympathetic to these individuals in the film regardless of my preconceptions about the homeless in the United States. Yes, most of the people in this film certainly didn't make the right decisions in life, some were openly smoking crack on camera and most definitely were not educated. But it made me realize that we all make some mistakes and it is possible for some of those mistakes to spiral into their situations.The "characters" in the film were all much more articulate then I would have expected from some homeless people. They all told their individual stories but none of them tried to make any excuses for things they've done in the past to get them where they were which is what I think ultimately made me feel sympathetic to them.But it was the style of this film that really sucked me in before the characters and subject matter did. It was beautifully shot on B&W film which was impressive considering the lighting issues inside the tunnel. The soundtrack from DJ Shadow was also excellent and really added to the mood of this film. Overall, a great doc. I recommend it to everyone.