Cheap Dark Days (DVD) (Marc Singer (II)) Price

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Customer Reviews of Dark Days

Dark days, dark times, but a bright outlook on life
You will have come to this movie in a few ways. One way is from a musical standpoint, being a fan of hip hop artist DJ Shadow and wanting to hear how his music was used. Or you happen to be a fan of the cinema and enjoy independently made movies. Regardless of which way you come in, you will not be the same person the same way out. "Dark Days" is a dark movie, shot entirely in black & white, about people who lived in the tunnels underneath New York City, a population most people ignored. Director Marc Singer captures the feelings and opinions of each person, why they live there, and how they live on a daily basis. Some lost families due to drugs, others feel that this is the best way to beat the system. You manage to get yourself involved in each person, and hope for their best as the film goes along. The documentary ends on a good note, and it makes you re-evaluate your own standards of living.

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First rate DVD and an amazing story
This is a movie where the story of how the film was made is even more fascinating than the movie itself. A couple of months after befriending a bunch of homeless people who had constructed "homes" in a train tunnel, Marc Singer got the idea of making a film about them, using the tunnel's residents as the crew, with the aim of using any money the film made to get these people proper housing. He had no idea how to make a movie though, and the 45-minute "Making of Dark Days" documentary included on the DVD tells the story of how they managed to pull it off successfully. Singer himself actually ended up living in the tunnels. It sounds depressing as all hell, but the subjects of the film DID end up getting proper housing and rebuilding their lives (updates on what happened to them are also included on the DVD). I would probably give a VHS tape that only included the film itself 3 stars, but the DVD with all the extra material is worth 5 stars.

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Who is this guy?
Who's this guy, Mark Singer? Why was he crawling around in the tunnels beneath New York City? Where did he go after making this film?

None of these questions are answered by the DVD's intriguing short film on how "Dark Days" was made.

What we do get is a quick picture of a man obsessed by a group of homeless living in an abandoned train tunnel underneath New York. The other reviewers have pointed out how unsentimental, yet full the depiction of these people is. I agree. I'd go further. It's like an angel was dropped out of the sky to make this movie, and then vanished.

Okay, so that's hyperbole.

But that's the kind of whacky thought that occurs to you when you watch the hand-twisting, blushing director describe the movie he made - perhaps the best frickin' movie ever made about homeless people...EVER - the fact that making the flick drove him temporarily into homelessness, the fact that this guy out of NOWHERE wins all the dang Sundance awards a few years back not only for the message, but for the astoundingly beautiful cinematography, yet the kid never made films before... yadda yadda yadda.

This is a landmark film. More hyperbole, perhaps. But the plight of the homeless is one of the biggest problems facing the industrial West. And yet...and yet...zero discussion. Zero concern. Instead, we get a lot of lip about how the homeless are lazy and shiftless and live off the government, etc. "Dark Days" shows that the homeless are people. Humans. Complete and beautiful, flawed and ugly. The whole deal. How can you walk away from this movie and see a panhandler without a feeling of, not pity or compassion, but empathy?