Dark Days

Following the members of a small shantytown community of homeless tunnel dwellers who live underground in New York City, filmmaker Marc Singer takes his single black-and-white camera deep inside cavernous Amtrak tunnels leading out of Penn Station to converse with nearly two dozen inhabitants of this dank and dirty, pitch black realm. Many are addicts; most are tortured souls (two are brought to tears recounting the deaths of their children); but each of them is humanized to an extraordinary extent by the camera's unblinking eye, which records how they adapt (tapping into the city's electricity to create almost normal homes with lights, stoves and even TVs) and tracks them through two years of survival and crises that includes a sweep by armed Amtrak police trying to push them back out into the streets. Hailed by critics nationwide, and showered with awards at Sundance, this sell-through priced gem is highly recommended. (R. Blackwelder)