mswyrr | “the crow” (1994)

I hadn’t seen this since childhood and I was worried I’d find it disappointing. I’m happy to say it held up very well!

It’s a lovely fairy tale! Quite hopeful, actually - the gang leader brother and sister have brought corruption in the city to the point where good people (Eric and his fiance Shelly, the good police officer Albrecht) cannot fight it anymore without being shut down or killed. It’s become a kind of almost supernatural evil. The crow/Eric comes not simply for personal vengeance, but to remove that. To free the city. It won’t become a perfect place, but it will become a place Albrecht can be a genuine force for good in, a place where the next Shelly who tries to fight for tenant’s rights won’t be brutally killed, a place where the young girl Sarah and her mom have a chance.

Similar to how Eric removes the physical addiction from Sarah’s mom, but her emotional issues remain, it doesn’t mean the capacity to do bad things is gone. Nor the motives for doing wrong. The angel and devil are both still on our shoulders. It’s just that now it’s a fair fight.

One of the things that makes it really effective is that this is NOT a fridging story, where the male character’s pain comes from witnessing the suffering of a woman - that fantasy of remaining physically inviolate. Eric is himself a victim, murdered on that same night, and he has empath abilities: he feels the suffering inside himself of Shelly, of Albretch.

It is actually, at a pivotal moment, being able to put that empathy inside the mind of the villain that destroys the villain. The pain he’s inflicted so callously on others is the thing he himself cannot endure.

Rather than it being a more traditionally gendered story about putting down those who’ve hurt the women/children who are yours as a man, it’s a bit more complicated. Drawing on the personal victimhood vengeance narratives more typically given women. On the power of empathy and connection.

And it’s very much about community rather than a loner: Eric works together with Albretch and Sarah. It’s their city, after all: he’s a ghost who does not belong anymore. He’s able to bring the extra dose of power to free the city but he cannot do it entirely for them but rather *with* them.

This fits, I think, with Alex Proyas’ other film “Dark City” (1998) - another fundamentally hopeful story about this city controlled by a malicious supernatural/supra-normal force. It’s freed and then the future can begin. There’s no guarantees about what kind of a future it might be: people may very well do bad things with their freedom. But the game isn’t rigged anymore.

(Though, bc of the powers John has at the end of Dark City and the fact that he’s alive rather than a ghost who returns to the afterlife, I feel like as a lead he’s more troublesome in some ways than Eric… still love that movie too though!)

It’s just really cool. Aesthetically dark and not pollyannaish about the darkness inside people too. But very aware that the game is rigged. People often want far more good than they’re allowed to reach for. With the aliens in Dark City it’s quite metaphorical, what larger social forces you choose to see there. It’s a bit more grounded in The Crow: corrupt landlords and exploitation.

It’s still pretty simplistic and comic book-y… but I like that. It has a kind of purity to it, to just say: it’s not fair. Sure, people can do and want bad things. But they don’t really get a chance. They don’t really get to do the good they want freely. What if they could be free?.