Dark Crimes

"Dark Crimes" from 2016 is generally a bad movie. The writing lacks and the realisation is far behind, and it's 1 of 2 movies that I know to have 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. So, on paper, it sounds like something to avoid at all costs, right? Well, unless you're me, so...

Jim Carrey plays a Polish policeman investigating a cold case of a murder. The best part for me was that it was apparently shot in Nowa Huta, a place where I was born and raised. The visual part and vibe is the strongest thing here.

The film was shot in Poland and the action is set somewhere in Poland (according to the Wiki, it's Warsaw, but I don't recall any indicator of that in the movie itself), but in reality, it's not. There is this type of aesthetics called Polishcore and to me, "Dark Crimes" took it and made a largely fictional place rooted deeply in these aesthetics. All the props here are 100% Polish, but as a whole, it looks different. More gloomy, more empty, more… liminal to a point? And I love it.

It's like when Westerners make movies about Japan, but they don't really understand it. Nowadays, it's sometimes called appropriation, but I'd like to see this as an honest usage of visuals of a certain place to create something new. Like when David Lynch used Łódź to create another dimension in "Inland Empire." And to me, coming from the place where they were actually filming (but I didn't recognise any place used :D, Kraków is big), it was a fascinating spectacle.

The action was slow and at times, I felt as if it was put together from only related vignettes (my wife disagrees), which, combined with Jim Carrey's minimal acting, or even almost non-acting, and choice of colours (all the cars and clothes are dark and greyish) built a really bleak atmosphere. It struck me later that the whole thing could be a dying dream of Tadek who sits on the couch and goes through events leading to that final moment.

An interesting thing is it's based on events that I vaguely remember, and I liked that Carrey's detective figures the case out from reading a book and connecting the dots.

Would I recommend "Dark Crimes?" I don't know. If you're a movie buff, you probably don't need a recommendation by this point, and if you're a fussy watcher, you probably should sit that one out.