http://www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk/reviews/2008/09/01/the-seeing-double-review-dark-city/ A Deviant View of Cinema - Film, DVD & Book Reviews Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:28:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk/reviews/2008/09/01/the-seeing-double-review-dark-city/comment-page-1/#comment-53963 Chris Stopper Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:34:58 +0000 http://www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk/reviews/2008/09/01/the-seeing-double-review-dark-city/#comment-53963 Interesting conversation/observations. To me this film is one of the most straight up allegorical tales ever made. The Dark City is the dark ages. John is anyman, dropped naked from his watery womb like us into a cold forbidding world he didn't ask to be in. The powers that be attempt to introduce into him a form of original sin (that he's a murderer) but he avoids this indoctrination. Because of this his mind is unencumbered and he's free to seek the truth. He becomes a Galileo figure and The Strangers (the church) see him as a threat and attempt to do away with him. Long allegory short, he persists and eventually breaks through the shell (beach) of ignorance and becomes enlightened as to the truth (enlightenment here in one of the more heavy handed metaphors arrives in the form of the sun). John's truth, identical to Galileo's (that we're floating on some nondescript sphere in a lonely corner of the vast universe, which means we're not what we've been told we are) is cold comfort indeed, but enlightenment (in the Western sense) nonetheless. Once enlightenment is attained archaic thinking and those that espouse it (the strangers) begin to fade away and humanity enters a new age where we'll control our own destiny. Interesting conversation/observations. To me this film is one of the most straight up allegorical tales ever made. The Dark City is the dark ages. John is anyman, dropped naked from his watery womb like us into a cold forbidding world he didn’t ask to be in. The powers that be attempt to introduce into him a form of original sin (that he’s a murderer) but he avoids this indoctrination. Because of this his mind is unencumbered and he’s free to seek the truth. He becomes a Galileo figure and The Strangers (the church) see him as a threat and attempt to do away with him. Long allegory short, he persists and eventually breaks through the shell (beach) of ignorance and becomes enlightened as to the truth (enlightenment here in one of the more heavy handed metaphors arrives in the form of the sun). John’s truth, identical to Galileo’s (that we’re floating on some nondescript sphere in a lonely corner of the vast universe, which means we’re not what we’ve been told we are) is cold comfort indeed, but enlightenment (in the Western sense) nonetheless. Once enlightenment is attained archaic thinking and those that espouse it (the strangers) begin to fade away and humanity enters a new age where we’ll control our own destiny.

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