The Sounds of Dark Days

            I am very surprised by how much I actually enjoyed watching the documentary “Dark Days.” To be honest, I began this assignment thinking that it was going to be extremely boring and my assumption only got worse when I saw that the video was almost an hour and a half long, but as it turns out, I really enjoyed this documentary.  To see how these people lived, and not only lived, but actually thrived in that environment was incredibly shocking to me. I mean don’t get me wrong, those were awful, terrible conditions, but the people there found ways to make it as good as possible. The thing that shocked me was the fact that these weren’t just individual homeless people. These people had formed an entire community. The producers of this documentary did a great job of capturing the “realness” of the situation. The one thing that I think really emphasized the realness of the documentary was one aspect that often gets overlooked: the music.

            I think the music used in the documentary was very appropriate and framed the feelings the film conveys to the audience. For this documentary I use the term “music” very lightly because I noticed that there are actually only a few instances in the film that contain actual “music” and the rest is just background noise.  The only few instances where there is actual music, it is very simple and doesn’t take anything away from the images. I remember only two different types of music being played in the movie. The first little bit of music is quiet and sad. The music is subtle and merely sits in the background, invoking feelings of homelessness and depression. The second type of music is played at the very end of the video when they are all moving into their apartments. Contrary to the first type of music, this music is louder and happier. The last type of music, just like the last few scenes, completely contrasts the rest of the film.  While most of the documentary conveys feelings of depression, the last few scenes spark a new emotion: hope.

I think that the use of music (or lack thereof) is what makes the documentary so great.  The background noises used in the film do a better job than any amount of music could to describe the reality of what these people were going through. The loudness of the train coming down the tracks or the squeaking of the mice rustling through trash framed the depression better than any song could have done. These people were going through some very difficult times and I believe that the director wanted to capture the harsh reality as best as he could. I think that by adding lots of music, the film would have seemed too dramatic and fake. The sounds that we hear are the same sounds these people would have heard every day. This idea of making us hear what they hear puts us one step closer to living in their shoes. The producers don’t give us the luxury of getting lost in the music. For the hour and twenty minutes we watch this film, we actually become a part of it. For that short period of time, we live the life underground.