El lado obscuro

"Dark Matter" is a fantastic movie. For those frustrated with academic politics or anybody who enjoys a simple movie told well, shot well and acted brilliantly, should see Dark Matter.

The writer/director got it right. (Not necessarily details surrounding previous incidents that this may be based on), but the overall attitude of the students, and professors at the university are portrayed perfectly.

The story follows a brilliant Chinese student at an American University trying to get his Ph.D. under a successful and respected professor (played by Aidan Quinn). They showed us everything we needed to know about the main character, including contrasts to his fellow Chinese students with very effective, subtle scenes.

For the subtlety, effectiveness, simplicity, and brilliance of everything in this movie, "Dark Matter" is one of the best recent films made.

Loosely based on the 1991 University of Iowa shooting incident, Dark Matter tells a heart-wrenching story of a brilliant mind lost in translation.

Liu Xing (also means Falling Star in Chinese), a young student with humble background, became the elite a few selected to pursue his dreams in America. Shouldering high hopes of folks back home, the naive dreamer works diligently towards 2 goals in life: a Nobel Prize and a blond wife. When his bright future is blocked by the jealous professor, his rosy dreams crushed by cultural clash, and most damaging of all - his pride and dignity eradicated under harsh reality, our protagonist turned into a cruel monster.

The film is skillfully shot, well acted, and thoroughly entertaining with many bitter-sweet humors depicting the tough living conditions of poor Chinese studying in America during late 80's. Meryl Streep is excellent as usual. Liu Ye, one of the best young actors in China today, played the protagonist with powerful emotions that will bring the gentle hearted viewers to tears.

If you are looking for authoritative explanations to the Lu Gang incident or any of the recent school shootings, you will likely be disappointed. According to the director, this is a story based on his own personal experience, aimed to bring awareness to the dark side of the academics circle as well as the overlooked lives of foreign students in America. I feel the script could to be strengthened by more psychological exploration into the protagonist character, so the ending would not appear so abrupt. Yet overall this is a beautiful and touching movie. Not to be missed by people with similar experiences or those who are curious about the subject matter.

No one can know what is in the mind of another-especially in the case of mass murder. Shi-Zheng Chen, director of DARK MATTER, has created a fresh vision of America from the point of view of a recent arrival to this country. Liu Ying, masterfully played by Ye Liu, is a Chinese graduate student who has come to the US to study Cosmology with a professor that he has idolized his entire life. Ying's life seems to be filled with unlimited possibility, and the answers to all of his dreams and wishes seem just around the corner. DARK MATTER's forte is the portrayal of the energized spirit in this young graduate student. The film is shot in Big Sky country of Utah, and this location perfectly mirrors this limitless potential. Ying's area of study is the examination of dark and uncharted areas of the cosmos which seem to exert dramatic effects on the nature of life. These 'dark areas' are mirrored in the clandestine machinations of the politics of graduate school. It seems that the unfettered life of the mind only works if new ideas are able to fit within intellectual processes which have been well established over time. And this becomes the dilemma of the film. How can the free and uninhibited flow of ideas intersect with the rigidity of higher education? The sudden and shocking climax to the movie is a resolution to this issue, although certainly not a fair or just one. DARK MATTER shows how violence can be the inescapable consequence of murdered hope.

This film is NOT based on actual events. It is very loosely based on the events of Iowa University graduate student Gang Lu, who suffered from an array of psychological disorders in addition to being a very gifted student in physics. The character portrayed in this film is completely fictitious on a number of different levels. One can dismiss the Nobel Prize angle immediately. Neither the real life Gang or this film character would have been nominated. The Nobel Prize committee never accepts a grad student as a candidate. Also, this is not really a prestigious school; most of the better students in the area of the physical sciences either attend an Ivy League graduate program, Stanford, or MIT, not Iowa University. So in these two instances, the film is not realistic in its screenplay. It is still good fiction, however, and should be judged for its emotional content and ability to keep you glued to your seat. It was tragic what happened to both Gang and to the protagonist in this film, but it is just a movie, and not real life. Winning a minor $2500 prize at a second-rate university is not the same as being nominated for the Nobel Prize. Making comparisons to Gang is not being honest; this character had a sweet and loving personality with no visible signs of mental illness, while Gang was just the opposite. That this person would commit the same acts that Gang committed with the upbringing and personality traits that Liu Xing has in the film is highly unlikely. Another university (hopefully one far more prestigious) would have snapped him up in a New York minute for their research staff. That is assuming his material was accurate as displayed in the film. Major universities get larger federal grants based on their researchers in many instances, so he would have been a sought-after commodity at several top schools. The writers of the screenplay do not seem to understand the mechanics of the American graduate school system and how it relates to research and funding. But despite that, the story, acting and production values still make this a worthwhile film to view.

I watched this with several friends and it was interesting to see who was surprised by the ending and who wasn't. Let there be no doubt, there is a great subject for a plot here. Forget that its based on a true story because its not - that's just marketing and fodder for pointless forum discussions.

What really hurt this movie were the pointless special effects and overly exaggerated sentimental shots, mostly featuring Meryl Streep, interspersed throughout the movie - typically after a scene where the protagonist experiences success or failure. There are only a handful of these shots and they only last seconds – but they are schmaltzy in an otherwise very believable movie. If you're watching even somewhat closely, they give away the movie very quickly.

I'll bet Shi-Zheng Chen goes on eventually to make a truly great movie. This one is about half way there.