Confrontational, brooding, inquisitive, and transfixing, Tim Sutton's Dark Night is a minimalist portrait of American culture set against the backdrop of the Aurora California Cineplex massacre, a film which attempts to deconstruct how such heinous acts of violence can manifest themselves, leaving a lasting impact on the viewer long after the credits roll. Detailing the lives of six strangers, most of which are only connected by the massacre which takes place, Dark Night is a film that offers up a series of vignettes, detailing both the victims and the shooter himself, drawling parallels that are uncomfortable but essential in trying to understand how an act like this could have come to fruition. Tim Sutton's film uses static photography and space to evoke a sense of stillness and alienation, with all the characters, including the perpetrator, suffering from some form of personal emotional pain, each seeking some form of connection in different ways. From a workout warrior who slaves away attempting to be the best perceived version of herself, to a veteran who struggles to rehabilitate himself back into society, Sutton's film draw parallels between both the victims and the man responsible for taking their lives, detailing how much emotional pain and personal strife are universal concepts. The shooter himself is a character of utter isolation, a young man whose angst and bitterness towards society are pushing him down a dark road, one that ultimately leads to violence. The other characters share similar acts of pain and emotional isolation too, with Dark Night being a film focused on tapping into the true importance of having human connection, the need for relationships and how our shared humanity and kindness towards one and other are essential to us not falling down a path of hate. While the film makes no excuses for such heinous violence, Dark Night details how feelings of isolation can lead to anger and violence, seemingly rejecting the notion of mental illness in a sense, due to all these characters having their own emotional strife. Sutton's film isn't deeply political but it does have something to say about our culture's obsession for violence, showcasing how it's all around us, though it never pretends to disregard the importance of personal accountability either. Meditative and brooding with atmosphere, Sutton's film slowly approaches its horrific conclusion but in the end it's the director's refusal to show the actual act in which the filmmaker makes his most profound point. We see the before and after but never the actual act, with Dark Knight effectively focusing on the cause and effect of such violence, with the filmmaker creating a minimalist portrait of alienation and sorrow, one which begs the viewer to question to true nature of how an individual could carry out such violence towards their fellow man. An inquisitive deconstruction of such a horrible tragedy, Tim Sutton's Dark Night is a singular vision of pain, alienation, and violence, being a film which doesn't pretend to offer up any true answers to such tragedy, as it attempts to try and understand how something so terrible could happen.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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