Review No.146: In Darkness

So a certain Batman film wasn't the only one I saw this week that had the word Dark in the title or indeed one that had many scenes in the sewers. In Darkness is unlikely to make nearly as much money as Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises mainly due to the fact that it's a fairly deep Polish holocaust drama so not exactly one that'll have them packing in to the nearest multiplex. Robert Więckiewicz stars as Leopold Socha a sewer inspector in Nazi-occupied Poland who, when he finds Jews hiding in his workplace, decides to make some money by charging them to stay there. Agnieszka Holland doesn't set out to present a hero in the way that Spielberg did with Oskar Schindler but instead Socha is a former thief as well as a money-grabbing individual who is in two minds whether to shop in the group who are hiding in sewers in order to make twice as much money. As the Nazi officers start snooping around, including one who he once was in prison with, Socha's stress starts to grow and at one point he lets the Jews fend for themselves however he has a change of heart. Meanwhile those in the sewers are having to cope with shortages of food, constant attack from rats and the fact that they could get caught at any time especially with the Nazis getting increasing reports off them hiding in the sewers. Some family members try their luck elsewhere, a pair of sisters is broken up after one decides she'd be better off in a concentration camp, meanwhile one of the women gets pregnant having a baby in the sewer which finally makes Socha's wife sympathetic to his cause. The final third of the film sees Socha's character change as he finally starts to care about his Jews we see that he stops taking money from them and creates diversions so he can hide them elsewhere and Holland builds the tension up so you're willing him to succeed.

It's been a while from watching In Darkness to actually writing about it but some of the images from it have still stuck with me which is surely the mark of any good film. Holland really presents some starkly memorable scenes such as an early one as Socha sees a group of naked women running away from a group of officers while later he is unphased by the sight of several locals strung up after being shot. What she really does well though is create a cold, dark and underground world where these people are deprived of daylight and visibly shrivel in front of your eyes. The camera swerves around every bend as the constantly paranoid Jewish families hear sounds and start running while Socha's knowledge of his sewers means that he has the upper hand on any Jew hunters. Death is presented as a part of everyday life as Socha often comes across dead bodies, some of them are the Jews he was trying to hide, he just goes about his daily life. Robert Więckiewicz delivers a powerful performance as our Polish anti-hero someone who throughout has reservations about his good deeds but his transformation is presented in an organic manner so over time he finally realises that these people don't deserve to die based on their religion. Artistically In Darkness works however I did find it slightly repetitive at times as there's only so many times you can hear the same people talking about how hungry they are even though I do realise that this happened in the story it surely could've been adapted as In Darkness had a better flow to it at all times. I was also slightly disappointed by the preachy subtitle after the final scenes which tells us what ultimately happened to Socha and what was said about him. I feel that Holland had presented such a good film that a blatant political/religious message wasn't needed as we could've made our own minds up based on her film but as it was this was a visually memorable film with a strong central performance but one you have to psych yourself up to watch as it's more traumatic than both Schindler's List and The Pianist.

Verdict: Great visual sequences in the sewers of Poland coupled with  Robert Więckiewicz's great performance means that In Darkness is a great film albeit one that feels the need to hammer home its message in the final frame so for that reason it receives 8.5/10