Dark Days

Director Marc Singer

Certificate 15

Running time 84 minutes

Year 2000

At first, all you can hear is the noise. Somehow the 16mm seems to shake, although of course this would be impossible to detect in such darkness. However as the lights thunder round the last bend, the headlights unfurl the steam from the sewage that clogs the damp stanching air beneath New York City. From the onset, this fascinating, humbling documentary unearths a world never before explored. 

Beneath Penn Station and the banks of the Hudson, exists a homeless community who have deserted the streets of New York, to live in a makeshift underground shantytown. 

"No one in their right minds come down here," says Tito, one of the inhabitants who had been living in the tunnels for six years.

This is yet another reason why this documentary is so astonishing. Its director, Marc Singer, a disillusioned Londoner, who arrived in New York with the intention of spending a few years exploring the city, supported by pay from occasional modelling work, overhead a conversation about the tunnels in a bar in Greenwich village. 

Intrigued, he went looking for the ramshackle community. After several unsuccessful expeditions, he finally found the small shelters made from what the rest of New York left behind.

"It's a dump down there, pitch black, rats running around everywhere, garbage, and smells that make your eyes water. When I first went down there, I was amazed and awed; I had so much respect for everybody and I kept thinking, 'Could I have done this? Or would I have let myself go to pieces?"

This beautifully construed documentary was born from Singers desire to unearth the lives of these people, and make a difference. Dark Days certainly does this, and its refreshing creative angle enables a documentary free of the usual techniques used to pull at viewers heartstrings. Devoid of brash voice overs hammering away moral ideals, Singer created a free flowing documentary that simply gives a platform for the homeless to speak

The drug addictions, family tragedies and rejection are all obvious factors in the downfall of the inhabitants. However with the patiently shot footage, Singer has steered clear of leaving his own impressions on the viewer, and lets the voices and personalities be revealed.

From Dee, a crack smoking mother, who lost her two children in a fire, to young Chris who collects cans twelve hours a day, to raise enough money to live above ground on the weekends. Instead of  just uncovering the depths of humanity in New York, Singer unearths the unique sense of unity formed in the most depressing surroundings imaginable.

Ralph, who managed to give up his crack addiction, talks of his daughter being raped while he was in jail for burglary offences. He has never forgiven himself for not being there to protect her.

These painful stories of the inhabitants broken lives, are dispersed amongst the daily fight for survival. The friendships and characters of the tunnels are unearthed not through the interviews, but the acceptance of Marc Singer when he moved down into the tunnels, and there openness to talk in front of him.

Dark Days is a truly inspiring piece of work. By emerging himself in such squalid conditions, and putting no boundaries between himself and the focus of the film (He even assembled a film crew from the inhabitants) Singer maintained creative control, and in doing so, touched and ultimately changes the lives of the people the big apple forgot.