The Crow

Director: Alex Proyas (USA). Year of Release: 1994

Devil’s Night, as Halowe’ene’en is known in a dystopian Detroit. Devil’s Night is the occasion for criminal gangs to set fire to the city and go on a looting and pillaging spree. Why? Because they are Evil. This is not a film which cares much about motivation or nuance. Anyway, on this year’s Devil’s Night, among all the arson, musician Eric and his fiancée Shelly are murdered on the eve of their wedding. “Who gets married on Halowe’en?” asks a cop. “No-one”, his cynical partner replies.

While all this is happening, we hear a voiceover by a girl who tells us “when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul cannot rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.” Did you get that? It’s to explain how Eric can return from the dead one year after he died, don white face paint, and start to put things right.

The newly resurrected Eric is always accompanied by a crow. Well, not accompanied exactly, but whenever he’s around, there’s a crow fluttering in the background. It is not that he is the crow exactly, more that it is his spirit guide or some such (please don’t expect too much sense). And why a crow? You get the feeling that one of the writers had heard that Edgar Allen Poe was a bit Gothic, and that he’d written a poem about a black bird (though they couldn’t remember which one).

Initially The Crow has a Goth sensibility. Eric wears black clothes and a frown, and early on we hear the Cure on the soundtrack. Before long, Goth is giving way to something more hardcore. As we hear Nine Inch Nails and Henry Rollins, Eric sets about avenging his fiancée’s death. It is as if the film were trying to cater to 2 audiences – one of which is looking for a brooding hero, another which is more concerned with ultraviolence.

Most obviously, The Crow is a film for boys who get off on gratuitous violence (of which there is lots). But you also have a sense that a key demographic is YA girls who are just discovering their sexuality while having no time for the useless boys of their own age. They are represented by Sarah, who we heard giving the voiceover. Sarah is cooler than they will ever be, carries a skateboard and has some sort of bond with murdered rock star Eric.

There is nothing sexual about the relationship between Eric and Sarah, as that would be inappropriate. Eric is Sarah’s older brother, her protector, her saviour, even if he is a bit hot. Hovering somewhere between childhood and adulthood, Eric is the hero on whom its ok to have a crush. He is dangerous, but only to his (male) adversaries and defends the honour of both Sarah and his murdered and raped girlfriend Shelly.

I won’t spend too much time on the plot, as there’s not much plot to speak of. Most of the rest of the film is a revenge drama. Some reviewers have compared the film to the right-wing terror Death Wish, which makes some sense. The Crow consists of not much more than Eric avenging the woman and girl for whom he has taken responsibility. (heaven forfend that the women would be given the agency to avenge the injustices that they have suffered or even to protect themselves).

The film’s female representation is somewhat weak. Despite Sarah’s coolness, her role is to be saved, and Shelly barely appears at all. The villains do have one woman in their group – Myca, the half-sister of their leader Top Dollar. Myca is Chinese and therefore exotic. She has about as little to say as Shelly. There is also a brief walk-on part for Sarah’s druggie prostitute mother, who messes around with one of the Evil criminals. For the rest of the time it’s mainly big men fighting.

Because of being dead and all that, Eric is immortal. This robs the film of dramatic tension. If he can’t be killed, what is the point of all the fighting? Much of, the film consists of Bad People shooting at Eric, while he refuses to get even slightly hurt. After a while, there is a plot twist which challenges credibility even accounting for the comic book storyline. Apparently if the crow which accompanies Eric is wounded (but not killed), Eric becomes vulnerable. Of course he does.

Every character in The Crow is either unremittingly good or unremittingly Evil. There is a cop who looks after Sarah, buys her food and is generally sympathetic. Then there’s another jobsworth cop with whom cop #1 constantly clashes. You see kids, it’s not about the abuses of power which are inherent in hierarchical structures, it’s about whether you’re nice or less nice. Changing society is less Fuck da Police than Could we please let the nice police have more control?

You can’t deny that the relentless fighting is choreographed very stylishly. Many of the scenes look terrific, but it’s all style and little substance. The Crow is a very dark film, which I mean less in the sense of deep emotional depth than in “could someone put a light on, please?” It is always raining but there’s a certain elegance in the way people move. Which is fine if you’re reading the comic book on which this is based. It gets a bit repetitive when you see it on screen.

In a couple of places, I’ve read that The Crow is only revered now because the star, Brandon Lee died on set. I don’t think this is fair. The film has a certain flair, which appeals to a certain audience. The fact that I am not in this audience is neither here nor there. Demanding that the film provide more plot or, ooh I don’t know, well-rounded characters is to miss the point. I can’t say I enjoyed it much, but seeing as it wasn’t made for me, that’s pretty much beside the point.