By Emily R. Zarevich, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Warning: This article discusses sensitive topics such as rape and violence against women.
May 10 to May 16, 2026, is National Victims and Survivors of Crime Week. The Government of Canada website offers resources and access to funding and virtual events. During this week in Canada, people who have been victimized by criminal behaviour of all forms are given universal support in their healing processes from trauma and campaigns for justice.
It’s also a week to consider how victims of crime is depicted in the arts. There are all sorts of moral questions to consider when a book, stage play, or film depicts a storyline where a crime is at the centre of the plot. Is it ethical to romanticize crime and criminal behaviour, such as the violent sexualization of women, in art? Should the audience be made to sympathize with a criminal through storytelling manipulation? Is a criminal in fiction sometimes right for what they did? Should “true crime” entertainment even be considered entertainment when there are real-life victims involved? And is the artist of such a work of art responsible for sending out an anti-crime message in their work?
The crime drama film Dark Crimes, directed by Alexandros Avranas, came out back in 2016. It stars Burlington-raised actor and comedian Jim Carrey in a rare strictly serious role that goes against his usual repertoire. Ace Ventura investigates missing pets with wacky antics; the detective Carrey plays here is a straitlaced, hard-boiled sleuth. He dons a beard and adopts a Polish accent to play Tadek, a staunch private eye who takes on the case of a murdered businessman. High culture meets violence in this storyline when it’s established that the murder resembles a fictional slaughter in a popular in-universe pornographic novel. This leads Tadek on a quest to implicate the author (mild spoilers ahead).
This film lives up to its grim title from the very first minute. It starts in what appears to be dimly lit underground dungeons, in which naked women are assaulted and tortured by luxuriously dressed men. This is a secret, illegal sex club in Warsaw, fittingly called “The Sex Cage.” The women depicted in these scenes are not given names or voices outside of their moans and screams. In some instances, they’re not even given faces: they’re blindfolded. The murder victim, as revealed through Tadek’s investigation, was a regular patron of the establishment.
The film presents its male characters as generally indifferent to the experiences of women subjected to sex crimes. The protagonist, Tadek, seems only interested in regaining his tattered reputation as a detective by solving the murder. He develops something of a morbid fascination with the novel that the murder is based on. The protagonist doesn’t appear to have any issues with exposing his miserable-looking wife, Marta (played by Agata Kulesza), to the audiobook at the breakfast table, and she rightfully complains about it. She is just trying to drink her morning coffee; she doesn’t want to hear all that.
Tadek also seems to think it’s appropriate to interrogate a woman named Kasia (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg) about possibly being sexually threatened by a love interest while her young daughter is present in the room. He doesn’t necessarily hate women, but simply isn’t interested in their feelings.
The intense, misogynist author Kozlov (played by Marton Csokas) tries to morally detach himself from the possibility of anyone mimicking the torture scenes in his novel in real life. “I’m not responsible for what I write,” he says in a TV interview with a bewildered female interviewer. The film’s audience hears graphic snippets of his book in several scenes. He does little to humanize the women being tormented at the hands of his own fictional sex club’s patrons. He does not attempt to write from their point of view, but rather pens a dismissive throwaway line about how they’re probably thinking about shopping or knee pain during a harmful sexual transaction. With this line, he strips the women of their three-dimensionality and reduces them to objectification.
Dark Crimes does allow some power to be given to a victim in the form of the character Kasia, who is revealed not only to be Kozlov’s ex-girlfriend but also a rape survivor. She exhibits tired strength and is fiercely protective of the innocence of her daughter, Hanna. In one scene, she berates Kozlov for exploiting her stories for publishing gain. In doing so, he robbed her of her voice and the right to tell her story herself, in her own words. The film could have done much more with her story and spent more time developing her character (while sacrificing a few of the repetitive scenes of Tadek driving in the fog). She holds the most intrigue in the plotline and is allowed by the director to express intense emotions.
Cinematically, the film is shrouded in gloomy darkness and is not exactly aesthetically pleasing. Being so devoid of colour, this artistic choice of lighting helps to omit any possible misleading romanticization about the subject matter. Avranas’s creative vision also utilizes a very slow pacing that doesn’t necessarily build up suspense, as is usual in a thriller, but rather quiet tension between the characters, especially between Tadek and Kozlov, whom Tadek is determined to pin the murder on in order to close the case as quickly as possible. The two men easily become bitter enemies, locked in a battle of wills in which both are trying to prove something about themselves: Tadek wants to prove he’s worthy of his profession, and Kozlov wants to prove he’s innocent. If he is innocent, then who committed the crime?
For viewers interested in watching the film despite its 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Dark Crimes is available on streaming platforms including Amazon Prime Video and YouTube. If you or someone you know has experienced crime and lives in Halton Region, there are several local support services available. These include CMHA Halton, Ontario Victim Services (OVS), and Halton Women’s Place.
Readers can regularly check Burlington Local-News.ca for more articles about films with a Burlington connection, whether it be a Burlington-based director, actor, or filming location.
