Skip to main content

Light from a dark city

I have watched Dark City many times, but it is only recently that I have reflected on its fascinating plot. The story revolves around John Murdorch who wakes up one day in an hotel, totally unaware of who he is. He stumbles around looking for clues, when the phone rings with a voice urging him to flee from danger. As he looks around he sees a brutalised corpse of the woman, forcing him to runaway.



As the story unfolds, we learn that John is developing supernatural abilities and that a shadowy group called the Strangers are after him. Who are these Strangers? Why are they here? Why is the city always dark? Why does no one seem to remember things? Dr Schreber a forced labourer of the Strangers fills in the blanks for us:
First there was darkness. Then came the Strangers. They were a race as old as time itself. They had mastered the ultimate technology. The ability to alter physical reality by will alone. They called this ability "Tuning". But they were dying. Their civilization was in decline, and so they abandoned their world seeking a cure for their own mortality. Their endless journey brought them to a small, blue world in the farthest corner of the galaxy. Our world. Here they thought they had finally found what they had been searching for....

They abducted us and brought us here. This city, everyone in it... is their experiment. They mix and match our memories as they see fit, trying to divine what makes us unique. One day, a man might be an inspector. The next, someone entirely different. When they want to study a murderer, for instance, they simply imprint one of their citizens with a new personality. Arrange a family for him, friends, an entire history... even a lost wallet. Then they observe the results. Will a man, given the history of a killer, continue in that vein? Or are we, in fact, more than the sum of our memories?
The Strangers are after John because they believe he holds the key to solve their mortality. As the plot thickens a key truth that shines through is that evolutionary progress however radical its claims ultimately has its limit. The Strangers are powerful beings with godlike powers attained at the peak of their evolutionary progress. They are so far ahead that when they hear John may share some of their powers they scoff at the idea . And yet there are severe limits to their make-up.

For one thing they are morally empty. They treat human beings in a degrading way. Everything is 'matter' to them and up for manipulation. All they care about is surviving at all costs. This emptiness is further magnified in their unfulfilled needs. One of the Strangers, Mr Hand tells John towards the end, “I wanted to know what it was like... how you feel”. Having climbed to the top of the evolutionary ladder, the Strangers find that there's nothing there. All that awaits them is death. For all their genius they have not solved their mortality. The final enemy, that is death, has not been conquered. Rather it has imprisoned them to the extent that they will do anything to go on living. Even if it means brutalising another species.

The movie is a powerful reminder that no matter how much we prosper, like Solomon eventually we will find that it is all meaningless. But not only that we all captive to death and in need of rescue. Death is the great leveller that we cannot avoid without external non-physical intervention.

Accordingly, the movie presents a clear statement that worldviews anchored on physical aspects of life are inadequate in explaining the full nature of man. Ultimately the true meaning of what it means to be human cannot be located in the physical dimension. It is non-material. This appears to be a key point of the movie. The Strangers hold to a strong material worldview. They believe everything is explained by physical properties. But as John reveals in the exchange below they stand devoid of truth:
Mr. Hand: But I wanted to know what it was like... how you feel.
John Murdoch: You know how I was supposed to feel. That person isn't me... never was. You wanted to know what it was about us that made us human. Well, you're not going to find it in here. [Murdoch points at his head]... You were looking in the wrong place.
Their hallow search for meaning anchored in physical experiences has not led them to the solution. Though the movie never answers definitively what place the Strangers should have looked, it is clear that John believes the answer is located outside the physical experience. Man is much more unique than a mere collection of memories. A perspective reinforced time and time again. John, mankind's hero, comes across as a conscientious person. He loves and protects those around him. He aspires to break out beyond his geographic confinement. Not content with living a lie, he yearns for truth. Unlike the Strangers who make choices based on cold logical calculations, John would willingly sacrifice himself for others, even when it appears on the surface his life looks meaningless. John is somehow able to transcend memories of betrayal and reach down to something that is unseen.

In this the movie’s message, whether by design or inadvertently, rings loud : worldviews that solely anchors the view of man in physical experiences run the errors of the Strangers who built castles based on human memories. These castles go up in flames in the same way the Stranger’s laboratory of memories does at the end of the movie. Only a worldview that sufficiently combines the unseen and seen offers a complete picture of human life. 
Copyright © Chola Mukanga 2013

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Humility of Newton

Thou hast honoured me. Thou hast given me a tongue and a pen, many friends; (Thou] hast made me extensively known among thy people and I have reason to hope, useful to many by my preaching and writings... It is of thine own that I can serve thee. And if others speak well of me, I have no cause to speak or think well of myself. They see only my outward walk; to thee I appear as I am. In thy sight I am a poor, unworthy, unfaithful inconsistent creature. And I may well wonder that Thou hast not long ago taken thy word utterly out of my mouth and forbidden me to make mention of thy Name any more! JOHN NEWTON ( Source : Wise Counsel) Newton wrote these words addressed to God in his diary in 1789. In that year, Newton’s fame had grown significantly because of his publishing ‘ Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade’ and his appearance before Her Majesty’s Privy Council appointed to investigate the slave trade.  I find Newton’s words quite challenging. The words reveal a heart truly shaped by t

Pride vs Humility

Spiritual pride tends to speak of other persons’ sins with bitterness or with laughter and an air of contempt. But pure Christian humility rather tends either to be silent about these problems or to speak of them with grief and pity. Spiritual pride is very apt to suspect others, but a humble Christian is most guarded about himself. He is as suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart. The proud person is apt to find fault with other believers, that they are low in grace, and to be quick to note their deficiencies. But the humble Christian has so much to do at home and sees so much evil in his own heart and is so concerned about it that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts. He is apt to esteem others better than himself. JONATHAN EDWARDS  (Source: The Works of Jonathan Edward’s, Volume 1)

Inconsistency of Moral Progress

If morality, if our ideas of right and wrong, are purely subjective, we should have to abandon any idea of moral progress (or regress), not only in the history of nations, but in the lifetime of each individual. The very concept of moral progress implies an external moral standard by which not only to measure that a present moral state is different from an earlier one but also to pronounce that it is "better" than the earlier one.  Without such a standard, how could one say that the moral state of a culture in which cannibalism is regarded as an abhorrent crime is any "better" than a society in which it is an acceptable culinary practice? Naturalism denies this. For instance, Yuval Harari asserts: "Hammurabi and the American Founding Fathers alike imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in th