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'Dark Matter' as Unfortunate Collateral Damage

posted 17 years ago by hiuwai
5 replies | jump to latest

"Dark Matter" as Unfortunate Collateral Damage

http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=features&Id=1922

by Mark Bell

(2007-04-19)

The shootings at Virginia Tech shocked a nation, but will their aftermath continue to cause havoc? As a nation asks "why" and starts to formulate theories, one independent film may be about to find itself a victim of its own subject matter.

Debuting at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, director Shi-Zheng Chen's "Dark Matter" tells the story of a gifted Chinese physics student, Liu Xing, and his rise-and-fall on a college campus. Beginning as a brilliant rising star, he quickly dwarves all those around him, including his professors, who then conspire to keep him from gaining the notoriety he is due as a physicist. The film culminates in a scene of extreme violence when a despondent Liu Xing goes to class, and shoots his college classmates.

Stating itself as based on a true story, the film gained high praise at the 2007 Sundance, winning the Alfred P. Sloan Prize, which brought in a nice $20,000 gift. Everything was looking golden, and the feature began its film festival circuit, playing across the United States, with the hopes of possible distribution and theatrical release sometime in August. Now?

Beyond the surface similarities involved with a shooting on a college and the one doing the shooting being Asian, this film should have nothing to worry about, right? For one, the Virginia Tech shooter was a South Korean English major who had lived in America the majority of his life, not a Chinese physicist in America specifically for his studies. But history has shown that even though films should have no problem, that isn't necessarily so.

Take for instance Tim Blake Nelson's adaptation of Shakespeare's "Othello." Entitled "O," the film was a contemporary re-imagining of the classic play, set in a high school. As most Shakespearean tragedies are wont to do, this one gets violent by the end. Picked up by Miramax, "O" was set for distribution in 1999... and then Columbine happened, where two teenagers going to Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado decided to attend class with an arsenal of guns and kill as many classmates as they could. As a peripheral result, "O" not only didn't come out in 1999, it was shelved until 2001 and eventually released by Lions Gate.

You can almost predict a similar fate for "Dark Matter." For festivals yet to program, the film's climax may seem a bit too on the nose, especially right now. If you're a distributor, you've got to be thinking about whether or not anyone would want to see a film with that ending, let alone even pay for it. So, maybe you pass on it for a while. Or maybe you pick it up, but only if the filmmaker will change the ending. The film is quality, sure, but not right now.

Unfortunately for "Dark Matter," it's not like "O." It doesn't have a Miramax or Lions Gate behind it that's going to wait until the right time to release it. Like many independent films, its timeline is now, and it's running down. The average life of an indie film on the festival circuit is two years. "Dark Matter" may be on its way to an early exit.

If you're shaking your head "no," if you think we're too enlightened in this day and age to connect dots so far apart on sheer surface similarity and react, I wish I could say I agree with you. Unfortunately, within hours of the Virginia Tech tragedy, I was watching Jack Thompson's newest attack on violent videogames, and reading Debbie Schlussel try to reason how, since the shooter was reported as Asian (they hadn't released any details beyond that at that point), he was probably Pakistani, as they can be considered Asian, and if he's Pakistani then he's probably Muslim and somehow this all means that we need to shut our borders to foreign students. And if unbelievable flawed leaps in logic like that can occur on a successful blog (Debbie almost won a Weblog award for her blog in 2005... then again, it was for Best Conservative Blog), then "Dark Matter" doesn't have a prayer.

So why point it out? If I keep my mouth shut, maybe no one knows about "Dark Matter" and the vague similarities. Because that's a problem too. Festival programmers, distributors, film fans... you need to know that this film exists, and that this film could be set for an unfair uphill battle. You need to know so you can be informed, so you can let the world know that, so what, this film deserves to be seen. Don't let "Dark Matter" become a victim. You're all on notice.

- Mark Bell, Editor-in-Continued Disbelief

[–] rds128 17 years ago

This movie, based on its descriptions that I have read, smears the real life victims of the murderer by painting them as the villians, when in reality, they were the opposite. Changing names doesn't hide, or excuse this.

It just seems like another attempt to glorify killers, as oppressed victims of society.

[–] smileyisgod 17 years ago

They are not the "real life" victims though, are they? THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION! The Texas chainsaw massacre is also based on "real" events - albeit somewhat loosely. All this film has done is to take a situation that seems to repeat itself, not just in our culture, but in others (if you don't believe me, look up teen shootings in Japan). It has then INVENTED a premise for the story to work around that allows interesting depth into the motivations behind everyone involved and (I'm inferring, as I haven't seen this film) how this snowballs out of control to it's horrifying conclusion. It is only through the intense characterisation that films like this give us that we can truly start to see gray areas between the black and white. If you are naive enough to believe that good guys are born good, bad guys are born bad and that's the end of it then I can understand why such accounts can leave you feeling uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean that the rest of us cannot distinguish between a factual account of a documented event and someone making a film that explores and expands what we think and how we feel about such situations through a work of complete fiction.

[–] stockmanscot 17 years ago

This isn't fiction it happened in my home town Iowa City, IA Nov 1 1991, on the campus of University of Iowa. Get your facts striaght, look it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_Lu

[–] smileyisgod 17 years ago

First of all I would like to apologise. I should realise that when you discuss these things you have to be careful as they have affected real people and I certainly didn't mean to cause you any offence.

The point that I guess I was trying to make (albeit badly) was that ANY film that is "based on truth" is simply that filmmakers interpretation of the truth as they see it, and therefore whilst the event itself is fact, the film is still actually fictitious to a degree. Traditionally these films are usually quite detached from the actual events. Sometimes picking and choosing which parts of the “truth” to show, and which to discard. As an example, looking at the link you sent me it says that;

“The real reasons for the tragedy are still unknown today because Lu's letters have not been released to the public.”

Whereas the film (I believe) attempts to explain this away. It is this part of the film that is heresay, conjecture and ultimately fictitious. I am sorry if you were offended though, I’m kinda wishing I’d used another film post to make this point like Titanic or Pearl Harbour!

:)

[–] byspring 17 years ago

You can almost predict a similar fate for "Dark Matter." For festivals yet to program, the film's climax may seem a bit too on the nose, especially right now. If you're a distributor, you've got to be thinking about whether or not anyone would want to see a film with that ending, let alone even pay for it. So, maybe you pass on it for a while. Or maybe you pick it up, but only if the filmmaker will change the ending. The film is quality, sure, but not right now.

I really don't know where they come up with this crap.
At the end of the day, how many people were directly involved with the shootings? Even if there were 500 people somehow related to each person that was killed in the shooting that would still not be anywhere near the amount of people in the world who would not be "traumatised" by watching the film or "being reminded" about what happened.

I don't understand this whole "out of respect" thing.

As I said in another post, people are grieving every day over all kinds of deaths. Take car crashes for example. How many people know someone who was killed in car crash? Or involved in a car crash? Countless people in each cinema are probably affected by a car crash scene but you don't see them delaying the movie or not showing them so as not to offend a specific bunch of people.

I also think it's safe to say none of the people that were so disturbed or involved with Vtech will be going out to see the film at the cinema, they can simply choose to stay home. And if they do go to see it, it's upto them to deal with however it makes them feel.
There's no reason to deprive everyone else of the right to see a decent film and also make everyone involved in the film lose money etc "out of respect".

Why don't they just dedicate the film to the victims or something..?
Death is a part of life and thus a big part of films. You can't escape it, you are bound to offend someone unintentionally. Why are they putting the Vtech people's feelings above that of others? What's the deal, really

Unfortunately, within hours of the Virginia Tech tragedy, I was watching Jack Thompson's newest attack on violent videogames, and reading Debbie Schlussel try to reason how, since the shooter was reported as Asian (they hadn't released any details beyond that at that point), he was probably Pakistani, as they can be considered Asian, and if he's Pakistani then he's probably Muslim and somehow this all means that we need to shut our borders to foreign students. And if unbelievable flawed leaps in logic like that can occur on a successful blog (Debbie almost won a Weblog award for her blog in 2005... then again, it was for Best Conservative Blog), then "Dark Matter" doesn't have a prayer.

I think everyone is capable of making insane "leaps in logic" or whatever. Even the most intelligent people can spout the most flawed biased bull at times. Most people can see that it has absolutely nothing to do with this stupid far off link. I mean, I can see how she came to the conclusion, but I don't see why she thought it would be a good idea to not let any foreign students in. I guess it's just the irrational fear of Muslims that a lot of people seem to have.
As for the attack on violent video games, that is typical. People (such as Jack Thompson) just looking to use what's happening in the world to try and prove their point when people are more likely to be influenced.

It just looks like a bad habit to me, but how did all this delaying films stuff start, and get so out of control?

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