2.77: The Darker Tower

Cary Fukanaga gets It.

Born into experiences and history that reflect struggle, the man has always been blessed with stories of struggle. This presented him with a point of view you aren’t ever going to see from a Hollywood insider raised in the isolation of that media circus. No, Fukanaga gets it. Moreover, he gets The Dark Tower. His latest release, It, ties the book back to the Dark Tower roots that helped cement the series lore. It is about 7 children who encounter an other worldly creature in the sewers below Derry. It is really about an entity of evil that is of the Dark Tower and furthers the argument that the tower, being the nexus of all things, is not inherently good nor evil, but simply is. And from that place comes a hunger both for love (the connections between this particular Katet of seven kids) or of fear (what the creature feeds upon).

Fukanaga handles the material with expert care. It covers roughly half of the story, focusing on the lives of the seven kids and leading up to the other part of the story in which adults also face the horror of It. He also handles the deeper angle of the story with precision. It is also very much the story of the Turtle and the 12 guardians of the 12 portals pictured below. He takes care to include each in a scene.

Fukanaga gets this, but doesn’t force it or beat us up with the imagery. What we see is largely subtle and purposeful. For example, there is only one scene that focuses on a rat, despite the time spent in the sewers. That scene doesn’t even take place in the sewers.

I could go on all day about this, but I only have 10 minutes…

Some Thoughts

  1. Fukanaga is about to drop a Netflix series called Maniac. It is the dark spiritual cousin of Ready Player One–sans computers. It stars Jonah Hill and Emma Stone among others. I’m in.

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