Rating: 
Summary: It takes hard work and ingenuity fo live in a subway tunnel
Review: This documentary won three separate awards in the Sundance Film Festival in 2000. I can well understand why. At that time there was a whole colony of homeless people who lived underground in the subway tunnels in New York City. It was dark and damp and full of rats, but yet they preferred it to a homeless shelter. There, they erected their personal shacks and struggled for survival, venturing out to forage in garbage cans for food as well as for stuff to sell. British Producer Marc Singer was so fascinated by these people that he ventured into these tunnels and spent two years getting to know them. Eventually he wound up living with them and made this film, using the homeless people themselves as crew.
The film is unique in that it shows these homeless people as human beings and the viewer gets to know them as individuals. Yes, many of them have drug problems, but they still have lives, hopes and dreams, a tough will to survive and often a sense of humor. They manage to cook meals on makeshift stoves and there is a feeling of camaraderie among them. We also see their ingenuity with the very little they have. And realize that their days are full of hard work just to survive. The conditions they live in are absolutely squalid. But this is their home.
During the course of the film, Amtrak decided to rid the tunnels of the people and homeless advocates negotiated for them to be placed in real housing. By the end of the film we see them in real apartments. There is an upbeat quality to this ending of the film.
However, the DVD is much more than the actual film. There's a 40-minute interview with the filmmaker, Marc Singer, which is equally as fascinating as the film. I hadn't realized that he was a non-professional person who had never made a film before. He spent all his money on a camera and had to learn how to load the film. He became obsessed with making the film, and became homeless himself after starting to edit the more than 50 hours of film he had shot. There were many delays and setbacks but eventually the film was made and received many accolades.
On the DVD we also get to find out what happened to the many individual homeless people who we got to know through the film. A few had died but most of them had moved on and were leading more productive lives. It felt good to know this and to realize that Marc Jacobs had really done a tremendous good deed by merely making this film. I applaud him in every way. And I also applaud the film. Highly recommended. Especially on DVD with the added features.
Rating:
Summary: the absolute best
Review: this has to be the greatest documentary i have ever seen. i saw it for the first time back in january of 2001 at the red vic theater in san francisco ca. this film moved me in many ways. i first decided to watch the film because the soundtrack was completly done by dj shadow, a favorite of mine. the soundtrack added so much to the film, but im sure that it would have still be great even if the soundtrack were done by some loser band like linkin park or limp bizkit. great film, you have to buy it.
Rating:
Summary: First rate DVD and an amazing story
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: First rate DVD and an amazing story
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: The real deal...
Review: This is one of the best films I've seen on homelessness. The individuals in the film speak for themselves and it is their words that reveal the truth of the matter. The film is interesting in its segmentation into various 'topics' (e.g. rats) and the various levels of how these individuals deal with the living situation is quite moving. There are enough diverse opinions given that one gets a good understanding of the 'glories' of such a life yet it also reveals that it is not always as it appears. My only critique would be that this is but a small segment of the population and there are many who are less well spoken and who are far worse off in terms of problems (mental health, substance abuse or other) whose lives are considerably worse, whose stories are not seen. But as a whole this is by far the least judgmental and sensationalized film on the subject I have yet seen. Definitley get the DVD. It contains updates of the people in the film and an excellent interview with the director himself. The way the film came together is almost as fascinating as the stories of the individuals in the film. More importantly, I believe, you'll see where his heart was in making the film and it really adds insight to the film revealing that it is much more than 'just' a documentary. There are also clips of footage that didn't make it into the original film. The music is by DJ Shadow whose music is worth checking out also.
Rating:
Summary: Who is this guy?
Review: 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?
Rating:
Summary: Dark days, dark times, but a bright outlook on life
Review: 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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