In Darkness Review

In Darkness tells the true story of Leopold Socha, a Polish sewer inspector who harbored a group of terrified Jews in the underground sewers of Nazi-occupied Lvov. Unlike former Holocaust dramas, the film refuses to paint any of the characters (including the persecuted Jews) simply as unflawed victims. Director, Agnieszka Holland, instead dissects issues of morality and humanity both above and below ground, eschewing the sentimentality of Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. She spares the audience none of the brutality suffered by the Jews, including the pain inflicted upon themselves within the group. The film’s most striking scenes are those fleeting moments of humanity that remind the characters why they must endure this persecution. A child plays with a toy truck along the walls of the sewer while his sister sings an uplifting song. A young couple consummates their love for each other beneath a pile of worn sheets, providing a brief respite from their depressing reality.

For a film that spends most of its running-time underground, the cinematography is surprisingly laudable, capturing the squalid conditions of the dark sewers in vivid detail. The audience can almost smell the sewage and feel the damp. They share the characters’ claustrophobia and the sense of impending danger that looms throughout. As a result, In Darkness is not an easy watch. It is simultaneously haunting and uplifting. A worthy addition to the plethora of Holocaust dramas, it is certainly worth enduring.

4 stars

The Amazing Spider-Man Preview

Following a series of disagreements between Sony Pictures and director, Sam Raimi, regarding the Spider-Man 4 screenplay, producers were forced to cancel the project and announced plans to reboot the franchise with a new director at the helm. Many prolific names were considered, including James Cameron, David Fincher and Wes Anderson, however, it was (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb who Sony would eventually confirm as director of the reboot. An extensive list of potential actors emerged in a speculative few months regarding the new Peter Parker. Jamie Bell, Aaron Johnston and even Zac Efron were all rumoured as possible suit-fillers, but it was British actor, Andrew Garfield (The Social Network), who was eventually announced as the new Spider-Man, alongside Emma Stone as his love interest, Gwen Stacey, and Rhys Ifans as The Lizard. Unlike Toby Maguire, who made it clear that Spider-Man was just a job, Garfield is a lifelong fan of the Spider-Man comic books. During a Comic-Con panel discussion for The Amazing Spider-Man, the obviously humbled actor surprised fans with a heartfelt speech, explaining why Spider-Man was so important to him. “I needed Spidey in my life when I was a kid and he gave me hope. In every comic I read, he was living out mine and every skinny boy’s fantasy of being stronger, of being free of the body I was born into, and that swinging sensation of flight.”

With the recent release of exclusive footage, posters, photos and trailers online, anticipation is already building for Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man, which is scheduled for release in early July. Early images of a bloody and battered Garfield in costume hinted at a darker tone and texture than Raimi’s installments, silencing cynics who were afraid the reboot would model itself on the success of the low-cost, high-grossing Twilight films. “There are certainly darker, more intense feelings in this movie,” comments Webb in a recent interview. “There is betrayal, there is tragedy, but there’s also humour and romance. So it’s a very complex bouquet of emotions.”

The trailer offers a first-glimpse at the mechanical web-shooters which have prompted much dispute online. The concept of organic web-shooters was devised by James Cameron in an early Spider-Man draft in 1991 to avoid explaining how a high school student could invent the web fluid required for these complex devices. This decision was largely embraced by the comic book community. The Amazing Spider-Man, however, returns to the mechanical devices of the source material, a decision which has yet to convert the more protective fans of Raimi’s original installments.

It is easy to forget that before audiences were first introduced to Maguire’s Peter Parker, cynics and fanboys took to the internet to express anger and disappointment at every decision the director made. Yet now, a decade later, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man stands as iconic and precious as the comic books themselves. So let’s hope that in ten years from now Webb’s superhero reboot reaches the same heights.

The Amazing Spider-Man is out on the 4^th July 2012