Dark Days (2000)

hyped garbage

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

"Dark Days" is a documentary dealing with the life of several people who found shelter and a home in the subway system of New York City. It follows them as they struggle to make a living between dirt, drugs and many individual stories.In my opinion, this is indeed an eye-opening film. It displays the life under harsh conditions without robbing the filmed person's dignity. It shows how even the dirtiest and poorest place can become a home and how even there, people are fighting some very common human problems. At the same time it makes you thankful for the life you have and makes you search for better ways to help and support homeless people. It takes the men and women serious and delivers a well-balanced portrait.All in all this is a movie that should be seen by many more people than it is already. It promotes solidarity, doesn't degrade people in all their suffering and displays the darker parts of our society.

Singer did a great job with this documentary, especially consider his age and lack of experience when he filmed it. His ability to overcome the budgetary and technical constraints is astonishing. The end-result is an above-average documentary.I understand that Singer's original intention was to help some of the subterranean "citizens" with profits from this film. Like the documentary, "Born Into Brothels", this is (I guess) an admirable goal, but it certainly interfered with the movie itself.With all that out of the way, let me conclude by saying that I did not find it very enjoyable. I don't mean that I felt guilty or uncomfortable watching this chronicle of life on the outer reaches of society. I mean that I got a bit angry and fed-up with the situation. Are these people marginalized? Yes, undoubtedly. Do they live where they do because of a "few bad choices"? No. A couple bad choices lead you to buy a car that's a lemon, or to hit on the boss's spouse at your company Christmas party. People who deliberately commit crimes and turn to drugs are doing a lot more than making bad choices. Finally, are there options for these people to help get them back into the mainstream? Yes...if they stop making "bad choices".Worth watching, but be prepared to be frustrated if you are a person who has worked hard all his/her life and obeyed (mostly) the law.

Marc Singer's Dark Days details the 'life-styles' of several people who live (or rather used to live) in self-made homes next to and under the subway tracks in Manhattan. Singer, who used to live homeless, seems to have no qualms about just showing up front all of the grime and sludge and garbage and rats and, of course, darkness that these people dwell in. And it's so simple and precise, for the bulk of it, that one's glad it doesn't go any other way. For Singer it's something of luck- though more-so for those who lived underground- that they finally were put into housing by the end, because it provides just a bit more than what he already had. For the first hour, however, it's completely revelatory in his approach: it's just these guys up on the screen, in the kind of black and white cinematography that's as bare-bones as Clerks.In a look at the homeless there could be the tendency to become schmaltzy or too preachy. Singer allows for room in his film where these people talk to one another, conversations that wouldn't be seen in a more conventional journalism-type piece. And when Singer gets interviews and confessions, they're genuinely moving: we hear how some of these guys got to this point, where their children died or they lost everything and it's not exactly by choice they're at where they're at now. On the other hand, there's also the 'perks' of living in underground squalor, where the problems for homeless living above ground are greater than those who live below, with (surprisingly) electricity and ovens. There's actually a legitimate argument (though legitimate depending on what you think of rats and crack-heads) for living this way if you're homeless.The approach is with the superlative 'direct-cinema' quality that comes with the likes of Maysles movies, but Singer's style is also adept at getting noirish imagery. And the music selections by DJ Shadow is spot-on for the imagery (save for the last few minutes, where Singer slightly missteps in putting music over dialog when in previous scenes there was none). It's a movie that forces one to think about the nature of the lower class, where they aren't always as such; a personal view of race, class, drug-use, and living for the city, without any pretensions about itself. It's some of the most compelling documentary film-making I've seen this decade. 9.5/10

I had wanted to see this for quite a while, specially after hearing all the hype. I was excited as I was about to view it, but only came out with disappointment after watching it. I couldn't feel a connection with any of these people (and it's not because they were homeless, I was on the streets myself) but it was just hard to really be moved here, it seemed to just trail along, and wasn't all that interesting. I enjoyed Union Square a whole lot more. You would think he could've made more with this subject, ppl living underground should be more than this documentary. I wanted to feel something for these people, but it just wasn't there.