ABSTRACT
Dark City is a science fiction film, containing elements of Blade Runner and The Truman Show, set on a Batman stage and precursing Matrix. Dark City takes place almost entirely at night, in an urban setting which borrows much from futurists’ visions from the 1940s. The concept of individuation is central to analytical psychology. The opening scenes of Dark City show an entire population in the grip of the collective unconscious, metaphorically expressed in the way the Strangers control the personal unconscious of each individual by their nightly manipulation of memories. Walenski’s obsession with the aforementioned mandalas is not the only use of geometric symbolism within the film. Dark City is a simple and eloquent modern retelling of the journey of the hero. Using a Jungian methodology, the narrative is seen to be one in which the specific story of John Murdoch has universal themes, ones which recur throughout the myths that humans have always created.
