MJOLNIR AT THE MOVIES EPISODE IX: DARK CITY VS THE MATRIX

Mjolnir at the Movies is back with an episode celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Alex Proyas' Dark City, a film which deserves far more attention than it has received. We delve into the reasons why it failed at the box office and why it has perhaps been buried, and also compare it with the Wachowski Trannies' The Matrix trilogy, the first of which was filmed using Dark City's sets. We examine why Dark City is a film that is very much 'tuned' to our cause and how pecualiar it is - or maybe not so - that the Alt Right prefers The Matrix, even though the film is just more Jollywood multiculti propaganda....

FILM REVIEW: KNOW1ING, More Implicit Whiteness from Alex Proyas

Alex Proyas' 2009 film Knowing, styled as KNOW1NG, is a film for Alt Right autistes. It is not in the same league as his earlier work of genius, Dark City, either in terms of profundity or artistry, but it is certainly watchable. It appeals to the type of conspiracy theorist who sees patterns in any given date, time or random sequence of numbers. That said, some numbers are indeed targeted because of given mythical significance, like the magic six million™, for example. In this case, the sequence of numbers refers to the dates, locations and death tolls of great disasters, hence the figure 1 in the titular gerund. 

DARK CITY (THE DIRECTOR'S CUT): CHARACTERISATION, SYMBOLISM AND AESTHETICS

Spoiler Alert: I hope you have all watched Dark City by now, as I discuss the film's big revelation in this article.

 

 

In the last article on Alex Proyas' 1998 film Dark City, we took a general look at its meaning and themes from an Alt Right perspective. In this article, I wish to focus in on that increasingly marginalised subject regarding the philosophy of art: aesthetics. Take any course in the arts and humanities at university level now and I would be astonished if any professor touches upon it - unless it is as part of deconstruction theory or post-structuralism, where all positive notions of Occidental culture are torn down before students have even begun to appreciate what they really are. This has led to a complete detachment of form and style from content, where often arbitrary and deeply pretentious labels and descriptions are attached to museal artwork that has no content in and of itself, as I noted in my tour of the Saatchi Gallery.

 

FILM REVIEW: DARK CITY (THE DIRECTOR'S CUT): "Shut it down!"

 

Spoiler alert: Do not read this review before watching the film, even though I have tried to keep the biggest plot twist out of the review.

 

For the past twenty years, there have been very few great films. What do I mean by great film? I mean any film that has that ability to transport its audience seamlessly into the internal logic of its secondary world of hyperreality, while simultaneously demanding of its audience fundamental questions about existence. In this, it will blend drama with philosophy, scenery with art, dialogue with music. This requires a great scriptwriter, great actors, a great crew and a great director to bring them all together. Metropolis has it; Gone with the Wind has it; Night of the Hunter has it; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly has it; so too does the 1998 Alex Proyas film Dark City. Why then have so few people heard of Dark City?