MovieChat Forums > Dark Days (2001) Discussion > Disingenuous film. Sugar coats the homel...

Disingenuous film. Sugar coats the homeless life


What a total BS film. They only filmed very limited number of supposedly homeless people, who all happened to act and talk sanely, well groomed, healthy-looking, muscular, and even have built their own cozy shelters with fresh water, electricity, and television. They talked about how they have acclimated to their cozy environment and enjoyed the "freedom" that comes with it, then in the last 10 minutes the happy uplifting music starts playing, the federal government gave them all nice free apartments, food, furniture, and guaranteed jobs. Suddenly all the previously homeless people are happy, feel saved, and how they managed to "crawl out" of their previous dire mess. Sorry, I just don't buy it.

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You have to keep in mind that this was a particular group of people who had the tenacity to build houses and essentially a town in a subway tunnel - of course they weren't your average homeless people. Look up Freedom Tunnel in NYC on wiki. It wasn't the director's intention to try and represent the full spectrum of homelessness, he was just focusing on a unique group who had come up with a creative way of living. One thing the film doesn't mention (I don't think) is that he helped them find housing in the end. If it hadn't been for him, they might never have left the streets. So yes, it does have a sort of fairytale ending. Really interesting documentary.

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Exactly.

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No, you are sugar coating this film my friend. The homeless people were aware of their situation. They knew they were homeless, but they were making the best of it. Obviously getting government aid, an apartment, and a job were good things for them and provided a better way of life. I dunno though, maybe you're right. I sure would give up my stable job and living conditions to smoke crack and live in an underground tunnel...ahhh so tempting :)

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kris

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I think it's natural attraction. People are naturally attracted to people who are healthy and good looking. Plus the crackheads don't make for good story tellers.

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If you watched the Bonus Material on the DVD you would know the entire story. Marc Singer was hanging around this particular group of people for three months before the idea to make a film even came up! He didn't know how to work a camera and he was low on cash and his intentions were NOT to show the world what it's like to be homeless by any means. His intentions were to showcase this unique group of people and perhaps by bringing exposure to them in way of film, he would make enough money to help them get out. The deal from the beginning was that if they helped him out in making this film (which they did as all the characters we see in the film are also the film CREW) Marc Singer would use the earnings from the film to get them out of the tunnel.

Also, your point about the characters being not your typical homeless people, what about Julio and Leah? They were barely coherent and if you'd seen the bonus mat. you'd know that Leah killed himself one night by sitting on live tracks in anticipation of the coming train.

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this film doesnt sugARCoat anything. i go into the tunnels all the time and thats how the few homeless you see live. they make the best out of the situation.

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Sure, who doesn't go into tunnels to hang out with drug addicts and the insane.

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"Den Gleichen Gleiches, den Ungleichen Ungleiches."

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I think their different living style and accommodations made the movie all the more interesting. And perhaps a lot of the homeless people you see aren't as messed up as you'd like to think, and that maybe, just maybe, they're people too.

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If you were paying attention, Tommy himself mentions "95% of the people down here are crackheads". That may be over stating it a little but this movie shows that not ALL homeless people are crackheads, some of them ended up there for whatever reasons and sincerely want to change their lives but have taken quite a beating in life. The making of film included with the DVD is almost more fascinating than the movie itself, the fact that Marc became homeless himself trying to film it because he ran out of money, Kodak donating all the film, DJ Shadow agreeing to do the soundtrack and all the people who helped out, making dollies out of shopping carts. And they didn't even have any drills, they used iron rods to burn holes in the wood! Amazing, the ending is one of the most uplifting ever filmed.

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"Surrender Dorothy!"

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Uhh dude...you didn't notice that nearly everyone was high off their rocker? There were probably only three homeless people filmed that weren't high off of crack.

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You obviously don't talk to homeless people. I know many, andmost of them are nicer and more well spoken than people in homeas.

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I guess we can't all associate with such cultural elites as you. We're just a bunch of boring people with homes. And education. And prospects. boohoo

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"Den Gleichen Gleiches, den Ungleichen Ungleiches."

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I think a lot of them had mental problems of some kind too. Just because someone isn't babbling nonsensically like a paranoid schizophrenic doesn't mean there aren't mental issues there.

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