This is the world discovered and illuminated by gonzo documentarian Marc Singer, who spent a good part of two years living with and chronicling the lives of a half-dozen tunnel dwellers for his remarkable first film, Dark Days

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 3, 2014

Moving and memorable.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 3, 2014

The lives of these people inside their shacks are full of surprises as well as grim confirmations, but the things we don't know about them also significantly shape our experience of the film.

| Mar 3, 2014

Singer deserves credit for attempting to put a human face on such tragic circumstances, but he appears to have gotten so close to his main subjects that he seems unwilling to make them, or their desperate situation, look too bad.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 3, 2014

Some of these hardy souls have lived this way for years, decades even, and they've lived not just to tell the tale but to suggest that they've created a viable alternative existence. At times, Dark Days almost makes you envious. But only almost.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 3, 2014

Revealing, if occasionally frustrating.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 3, 2014

A fascinating, beautifully photographed portrait of a vanished community: a group of homeless people who built a shanty town in the train tunnels beneath Penn Station.

| Mar 3, 2014

Singer's stark black-and-white photography renders their world with the abstract horror of a German expressionist film, yet he's equally skilled at coaxing the grim personal stories of life underground.

| Mar 3, 2014

Singer captures intimate moments in the lives of his subterranean protagonists in their strange, crepuscular world.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 3, 2014

A portrait of the homeless community of "mole people" who lived in sections of disused underground tunnels in New York, this is a singularly powerful account of the lives of the dispossessed and desperate.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 3, 2014

Designed neither to warm your heart nor shelter you in the comfort of liberal guilt, the movie does what so many style-conscious, "subjective" documentaries have long forgotten how to do. It shows you a world, and stays the hell out of it.

| Mar 3, 2014

Singer achieves remarkable intimacy with his subjects, who share their experiences and joke around with the man behind the camera as freely as they do with their peers.

| Mar 3, 2014

The ending is pat but the characters' tragic stories linger on, squatting in the darker corners of your mind.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 13, 2014

A black-and-white hymn to the energy of the dispossessed, made in the late 1990s, but still horribly relevant.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 24, 2014

I would love to see a kind of 14-Up sequel: what's happened to these people in the interim? A tough, compassionate movie.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 24, 2014

As superficial as Dark Days was, the subject is singular enough for the film to be memorable.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 23, 2014

It's distinguished by remarkable intimacy, with none of the arty distance or aesthetic pretension a veteran filmmaker might have imposed. Singer's subjects feel more like collaborators, an ensemble cast.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 23, 2014

Complemented by its black-and-white photography and a moody DJ Shadow score, this is a gritty yet often tender look at society's margins.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 20, 2014

The movie, as heroic as it may have been to produce, is more noteworthy for its intentions than its execution.

| Original Score: C+ | Sep 7, 2011

Marc Singer's feted 2000 doc about a Manhattan subterranean community has lost none of its power since its debut.

| Jun 28, 2011