Dark Night (2016/I)

Dark Night enigmatically unfolds over the course of a lazy summer day, as it traces the events leading up to a mass shooting in a suburban multiplex. Abandoning the narrative confines of the true crime genre, the story is told through fragmented moments from the lives of several characters, whose fates are tragically intertwined. As the sky grows darker, the placid surface of daily life becomes disturbed by a lurking and inevitable horror. Tim Sutton, the writer/director of Memphis (2014 Sundance Film Festival), takes this ripped-from-the-headlines story of an all-too-common tragedy and immerses us in the emotional fabric of its young characters’ lives. Sutton deploys a keenly observant style and a recurring motif of guns to suggest the ever-present threat of violence in American life. With its lyrical images, evocative sound design, and mournful soundtrack, Dark Night is a quietly powerful elegy for the dead.