Dark City is an Australian film, directed by Alex Proyas and released in 1998. It was filmed in Australia, sharing some of its sets with Matrix, which came out the following year. It is worthwhile looking back at this much underrated scientific-fiction neo-noir, which flew under the radar at the time of its release partially because of James Cameron’s huge box office blockbuster Titanic, released just the year before. It has also been overshadowed by better known films of the same genre, such as precisely the Wachowski´s The Matrix (1999) or even Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010). Yet, it is easy to forget just how much these films owe to Dark City, something that has been acknowledged in interviews by Nolan himself: “I think when I first started trying to make [Inception] happen it was very much pulled from that era of movies where you had The Matrix, you had Dark City, you had The Thirteenth Floor” (The Playlist, April 5, 2010).
The story itself consists of a man, Murdoch, who finds himself in a city controlled by the Strangers, bald men-like creatures that control the city. They do this by continually changing the city´s appearance (building, destroying and reconstructing buildings, roads or places) and by periodically injecting new memories into humans, changing their identity. Having themselves a collective mind, they wish to understand our individual one and what makes us, humans, unique. However, Murdoch eventually acquires their powers and manages to destroy them.
At the end of the film, it seems pretty clear to us that the Strangers were taken down and that Murdoch came out victorious. But is this so? Murdoch and the other humans are after all still trapped in this city with no chance to return to Earth and, what is worse, with memories that aren’t theirs. More so, Murdoch’s desires were all based in his fake memories, for example his desire to see the Sun or the Ocean. So how can it be that he is victorious?
Well, one of the things the film is showing us is that memories are not what defines the human being. In one of the final scenes, Murdoch even says, when talking to the last dying Stranger: “You wanted to know what it was about us that made us human? Well, you´re not gonna find it in here [pointing to the forehead]. You were looking in the wrong place.” In this sense, since what is in the head – in this case, memory – does not define us, Murdoch has won because who he is doesn’t change, despite the memories adulteration. Yet, here another question arises. If memories don’t define us, what does then?
The film also suggests us a possible answer to this question and, simultaneously, another more complete answer to the first question. The city, more precisely, its citizens, during the “lordship” of the Strangers, live in a lie. They believe their life is true, never suspecting that their memories are being changed, so they have no way of knowing that they are not living reality as it should be. It is here that Murdoch´s role comes in. Since he, because of his powers, is able to discover the truth, he does more than just simply defeat the Strangers. He makes the city´s citizens live in the truth. Well, maybe not totally, because they still live with foreign memories. Yet, they now have something they did not have before, the ability to measure up to their desire for truth. Instead of having every progress they could eventually make towards truth be systematically taken down as soon as the Strangers imprinted new memories in them, now they can freely progress in order to find the truth. This is also the reason why being trapped in that city in the middle of the Universe is not a defeat – people still have the same means and opportunities to seek for truth.
Notwithstanding, the movie presents us with yet another problem. It may very well be that it is the heart, and not the head, that defines humanity, but Murdoch’s desires for the sun, the ocean or Shell Beach are fruit of the childhood memories that he has imprinted in his head. How can then the film say that memories are not what define us but then make the main character´s main desires dependent on the fake memories that he has?
In my opinion, this is not a problem but another clue to the film’s “thesis”. First of all, his craving for the sun and the ocean and his need for Shell Beach are not his deep desires. Those that truly define humanity are the desires for love and truth. The first desire was fulfilled when, in prison, Emma, still in the role of his wife, says that “You can´t fake something like that”, when talking about love; and when at the end of the film, already as Anna, inhabiting a different set of memories, she suggests they go together to Shell Beach. The second desire (for truth) is satisfied when, as explained above, Murdoch wins over the Strangers.
But now there is one more problem that leads us to the second aspect. Proyas makes us understand that memories are not the structure of the human being, they are not everything. They are what helps us have a path to the truth. Otherwise, as explained above, we would not be able to seek truth, since what we did in that direction would be consistently erased. With memories, we are able to construct a way to the truth.
After all this we understand that what the film tries to show is that what makes us unique and human is our desires for truth and love. These are supported by the existence of consistent and coherent memories. Those desires are in our hearts, which is why Murdoch says to the Stranger: “You were looking in the wrong place”.
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