Pitch Black (2000)

David Twohy

USA/Australia

112 min, color, English

An excellent sci-fi horror film with diverse (although somewhat typical) characters, good scares, imaginative monsters, beautiful cinematography, unobtrusive special effects, and a somewhat unexpected---but utterly appropriate---ending.

The usual summary for Pitch Black could easily mislead. A space ship carrying an odd assortment of passengers goes through an asteroid shower and crashes on a desert planet with three suns. There are only 9 survivors, but no thanks to the pilot who tried to jettison the passenger compartment during the landing. In their search for rescue, they come across an abandoned settlement. Several of them die under odd circumstances and the first urge is to blame the manacled criminal who is among the transportees. But it's not him. It's some ugly alien creatures who happen to be as nocturnal as deadly. Fortunately, because of the three suns, the planet never sees nightfall except every 22 years. Unfortunately, it has been exactly 22 years since the last night. The ugly aliens show up and eat a bunch of people.

Of course, one would not expect to see the equivalent Asimov's Nightfall (incidentally, the film's working title), and instead of grappling with consequences of darkness on a world that has only seen light, the sci-fi film will always go for the monster aliens eating babies. Let's not belabor some obvious points. Why are there always survivors in these crash landings? You know, everyone usually beings pushing up the daisies pretty strenuously even after a mild (by comparison) crash from, let's say, 18,000 feet. And boy, did the pilot not get a single scratch on her when the windshield exploded! I could go on, but I won't.

Because that's not what the film is all about. It's about the transformation of two characters, the pilot Fry (Radha Mitchell) and the escaped convict Riddick (Vin Diesel). They both begin as self-regarding, utterly egotistical human creatures who, following the standard Hollywood arc, become selfless human beings ready to sacrifice themselves for another. Fry goes on her journey alone, with her conscience as her sole inquisitor until she cannot stand it any longer. When Riddick offers that they save themselves and abandon the Imam and Jackie, she is physically unable to do it (Mitchell plays the scene superbly). She goes back (forcing Riddick to come with her) for the others. She began the film shouting that she would not die for her passengers, and ends it saying that she would. We do believe her, but what's more, she proves it too.

Riddick's return to humanity is guided by Fry, as in the classic Mizoguchi films where a young woman sacrifices herself to redeem a fallen man. Riddick is cool (Diesel always is, he does not have any other mode), dangerous, ready to help when doing so would be good for him, and ready to ditch everyone and run when it would save his life. He's a strange one. You begin by not liking him. He's a twisted criminal after all, and must have done something terrible to end up in chains. Then you slowly begin to sympathize with him as you see that he is getting blamed although he is innocent, and his captor is a bounty-hunter who is getting more abrasive by the second. Then you begin to like him, especially when he apparently tries to save Jackie, whose period is attracting the blood-smelling raptors. Then you totally begin to root for him when he fights Johns, the bastard bounty-hunter, who suggests they sacrifice Jackie.

And then, once safely in the escape shuttle, he loses it all when it becomes clear that he will abandon everyone and will leave them to die while saving his own skin. So he has not changed at all. In fact, he has been his usual ruthless self... until Fry shows up and demands that they go back for the Imam and Jackie. He questions her motives but goes to get caught by raptors on his way back. And then the incredible happens: Fry returns for him and dies (impaled by a raptor and then carried off) while trying to save him. His last words to her are "Not for me!", an utterly believable cry of anguish as he realizes the she has just sacrificed herself for (what he considers) a worthless human being. At this point, Riddick travels instantly from being nobody to regaining his humanity. There is no doubt in his transformation. Twohy could not resist underscoring this in the very last scene. Now in space, safe from the planet, Jackie asks Riddick what they would tell authorities about him once rescued. He replies that they'll tell them that Riddick had died on the planet. And so he did.

Although the effects and directing were nothing to sneeze at, it is the twin redemption story that makes Pitch Black so much more than the average sci-fi scare fest. The cinematography was absolutely stunning. I am not sure how they post-processed the film (or maybe used filters) but the daylight scenes looked bleached and unreal, making it easy to believe that they were shot on some faraway planet and not in the Australian outback. I was also partial to the eclipse itself, with the ringed planet being my favorite.

August 19, 2003