AllMovie

Dan Biholar is a poet and spiritual seeker who came of age in the Western Canadian city of Regina during the late 1970's. One of Biholar's greatest creative influences was William S. Burroughs, and unfortunately Biholar absorbed his appetite for drugs as well as his distinctive literary style. In the 21st Century, Biholar is still writing, but his life has become caught up in a downward spiral of drug abuse; he's addicted to opiates, and is looked after by his aging mother, a holocaust survivor who is struggling with her own emotional issues. Despite it all, Biholar is still searching for a spiritual redemption that will free him from his thirst for drugs and allow his muse to take him to new places. Darryl Miller is a filmmaker who was close friends with Biholar when they were both teenagers, and has fought his own battle against chemical dependency; Miller revisits his old friend Biholar in the documentary Dark One, and paints a vivid portrait of a soul in crisis and an artist struggling against the bonds that hold him back (only one of which happens to be drugs). Dark One received its world premiere at Toronto's 2007 Hot Docs International Film Festival.