Review of Dark Matter (2008) by Mauro_Lanari — 08 Jan 2020

(Mauro Lanari).

Inspired by the true story of Gang Lu and by the 1991 University of Iowa shooting, it's so interchangeable with the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting that production had to push back the release over a year. Sociological and cultural psychopathology of US late adolescence, it has not much to say about the narcissistic clash between professor and student, about interethnic conflict and even less about cosmology: dark matter is a simple metaphor of the negative side of human nature, recycled a decade later by Ayache-Vidal in "Les Grands Esprits". Debut of an opera director, it drags the theatrical ballast of "Monkey King" and "Madama Butterfly" (both explicitly shown in the film), adding cinematic incompetence to a melodramatic cut. Streep in "Desperate Housewife" version with a knack for sinology.