Dark Days

It's nigh-impossible not to be moved by Marc Singer's remarkable first film, about a community of homeless people living in a train tunnel beneath Manhattan. What's even more inspiring is how the film got made. Then-20-year-old Singer, who'd never before run a camera, lived underground with his subjects, recruited them as crew, convinced local merchants to donate equipment and even sold his own bed to buy film. His original goal in making the film was to fund its denizens' move out of the tunnel. The result is a fascinating slice of a part of life most of us have never considered. The characters are gritty, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic and always very real. Dark Days takes homelessness out of the realm of sociological phenomenon and into an almost-visceral engagement with these people and their lives. We look in as the characters decorate their scrap-metal shacks with discarded material, earn their livings, emotionally support each other and ultimately struggle with their homes' demise. Though clearly Singer roots for his subjects, he avoids the temptation to pity them; he simply calls it as he sees it - and has lived it. There's even a happy ending.

As we shift through the dark space of their world that is at once claustrophobic and cavernous, we see the mundane rituals of ordinary life play out: cooking, raising pets, cleaning, showering. The men (and one woman) of this film speak of a life lived autonomous from societal intervention. One senses that the filmmaker, and more adamantly the homeless themselves are trying to convince us that here in the subterranean garbage disposal of life, their needs are being met by the trash of the world that is chewed up and spit out. In the film, these leftovers become a metaphor for the people themselves - as they revel in finding a treasure of discarded donuts, or show their opportunist nature by collecting cans for cash to buy heroin. So our waste becomes their livelihood. We see them cook cornbread, they've got TV and radio and a space heater. "We're not homeless," one man tells us, "homeless is when you don't have a home." But then his friend corrects him. "Nah, you're still homeless. You just ain't helpless." But as the film progresses, we start to perceive something in the darkness, something invisible around the edges that keeps them buried underground; it's their addiction to drugs, and the memories of past lives that are fraught with anguish and suffering. They are lost souls - shadow people moving through an ethereal, timeless landscape.

This movie is amazing. Essentially made by the homeless about the homeless (with some help from an Englishman with no film experience). The 16mm looks amazing, and the darkness of the underground is a great setting. This movie won awards at Sundance and it's not hard to see why, this sort of bleeding heart left story line is always good for a for awards. This film actually deserved all the awards and it's not often I say that about a movie. It is essentially the story of homeless people living in a community under Penn Station in New York, and all the characters are engaging and fun, even if it is hard to understand them at times. This is what documentary film making should be about, this movie wasn't made by a film student, it was made by someone who felt deeply for the homeless and decided to help them. And because of this film all the homeless living there were given homes.

I just came across this gem of a movie on cable last night. I'm not a social activist and I don't particularly have a soft spot in my heart for the homeless. I lived in San Francisco for a while and I got pan handled by at least 20 people a day walking back and forth to the train...usually much more then 20 people , so that made disillusioned pretty quickly. But watching this movie did exactly what Marc Singer set out to do...made me sympathetic to these individuals in the film regardless of my preconceptions about the homeless in the United States. Yes, most of the people in this film certainly didn't make the right decisions in life, some were openly smoking crack on camera and most definitely were not educated. But it made me realize that we all make some mistakes and it is possible for some of those mistakes to spiral into their situations.

The "characters" in the film were all much more articulate then I would have expected from some homeless people. They all told their individual stories but none of them tried to make any excuses for things they've done in the past to get them where they were which is what I think ultimately made me feel sympathetic to them.

But it was the style of this film that really sucked me in before the characters and subject matter did. It was beautifully shot on B&W film which was impressive considering the lighting issues inside the tunnel. The soundtrack from DJ Shadow was also excellent and really added to the mood of this film. Overall, a great doc. I recommend it to everyone.

I enjoyed this film on a lot of different levels. The camera work is really beautiful, and the film has a loose narrative structure with an uplifting ending. All of the people in the film are very articulate in their own way, which shatters some of the stereotypes people have about the homeless. The movie definitely takes sides, and is sympathetic towards the homeless, but it also makes it very clear that the people made poor choices in their life which lead to their situation. Even in the midst of all their suffering, I found it surprising that they all have excellent senses of humor. The response to the question of "what item that you find in the trash is the easiest to sell?" is particularly hilarious.

It was also nice to see how many of the people in the tunnel form friendships, depend on each other in tough times, and know all of their neighbors' names, something which most people in the US can't claim. The symbolism of the white man and black woman tearing down their home is kind of over the top, but it did make me feel good. I guess I'm a sucker for cheesy stuff like that. The score by DJ Shadow is also extremely well done and appropriate. I agree that the average homeless person in the United States can afford to be much more lazy than those in other poorer countries, and they definitely have more opportunities to escape from poverty, but that doesn't mean that their situation should be taken lightly or ignored.

To the commenter who was angered at the use of the words "faggot" and "sissy" you can't possibly hold bad language and grammar against the people in the film. Have you ever listened to a conversation among children in the supposedly wholesome Midwest, or even in supposedly tolerant cities like San Francisco? I can assure you that the term "faggot" is still tossed around quite a bit. Homophobic attitudes and language are certainly reprehensible coming from educated, middle class children, but coming from an individual surrounded by poverty, chewed up and spit out by the criminal justice system, and breast fed on American popular culture, I don't find it to be much of an offense.

My only complaint would be that the film sugar coats everything a bit by ignoring some of the more unsavory aspects of homeless life and not interviewing the less appealing inhabitants. However, the overall impact of the film is powerful, and ultimately it is a film that everyone should see because it's entertaining and informative on many, many levels. Out of the hundreds of documentaries I have seen, this is definitely one of the top ten, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that I will remember it my entire life.