The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)

We are nearing the end of 2008, and so far cinematically it has been fairly disappointing compared to the phenomenal year of 2007. The rave of the year has been the follow up to Batman Begins, the new instalment of a series of Batman films, furthering the concept since the interpretation started by Tim Burton. I asked myself: Is it really a good idea to create a realistic environment around a character and idea that in of itself is unrealistic and stylistic. Furthermore, the role of the Joker has been hyped up to a great degree, to the degree of annoyance, due to the unfortunate death of Heath Ledger. These things make me suspicious rather than expecting anything good, and before I heard of his death I hadn’t seen him in anything, and before I saw The Dark Knight I had only seen him in I’m Not There (Todd Haynes, 2007) where he didn’t impress me that much.

Well, as usual, not everything is sunshine and flowers in Gotham City, when a maniacal clown is on the loose and wreaking havoc. So it’s up to Batman and his merry band of friends to save the day, and so they do, at least for this round. It is hard for any Batman film to surprise its audience, particularly because of how we have been familiar with these characters for so long. I guess this is inevitable for any film based on a popular hero franchise, such as Spiderman and Superman. However, unlike a lot of such films that have been released recently, Christopher Nolan does do a fair and honest stab at revitalizing the franchise. The main problem is that, with the legions of rabid fans waiting at the doors of the cinema, demanding a “correct” interpretation of the source material, it becomes problematic to creatively make a film that pleases both the hardcore fans of the series and the more casual audiences not too familiar with the original comics. It can to a certain degree be said as a fact that Nolan succeeded this, the film did exceedingly well in the cinemas and soaring high, currently fourth, on the IMDB Top 250 Films list. Although I don’t really agree with such lists, it does point towards the films success. So why bother writing this, the film is already praised to the skies and the fans all across the board love it. However, I feel I should express my thoughts on some of the problems in the film, as well as a concern for the popularity of the film, few films of this sorts have seen anything like.

One of the main problems is that while Nolan is striving for more realism, I wonder exactly how that realism includes a masked man with super strength and reflexes wearing a suit and calls himself Batman works in that realism? I know it is not to wise to question the realism of Batman, but somehow I feel the set reality of a film should work throughout all the elements, and thus the old Burton’s Batman films were in sort more realistic, as they worked in conjunction with Batman’s own realism. There is an attempt to work around this by making the Joker more realistic. There are different incarnations of how the Joker came to be, but the most common one is that he fell in some toxic waste which bleached his face, turned his hair green and froze his mouth into a smile. In the film, however, they chose to make him into an ambiguous maniac with a questionable sense of fashion. But lo and behold, it actually does work to some degree. Somehow the Joker now seems much more menacing. And yes, I will buy into the hype and agree that Heath Ledger’s acting is one of the highlights of the film, and makes the Joker disturbing and fascinating to watch on the screen. However, a lot of great chances to make the Joker an even more interesting character are wasted, making him more watered down and essentially undermining a lot of the effort put into the character by Ledger. The performance individually still stands out though.

There is also a structural problem in the film, in that it lacks a good cohesive structure, wavering too much around, the film has so much to tell and despite the long running time it seems like the film could have said a lot more. Essentially, some parts should have been cut, and more depth should have been added to other parts. The character Two-Face, who is introduced later in the film, is probably the root problem of this, disturbing the interesting balance between the Joker and the Batman characters. He is essentially supposed to support both and create some depth, however, the character takes something away from the main conflict, and suffers from poor execution. The later part of the film is the most unappealing of the film, a lot due to this. The film tries to go deep into psychology and philosophy, and sets up for something great, but eventually decides to provide easy answers to complicated questions and avoids provoking disturbing questions about human nature. The Joker character sets up such questions throughout the film, and does genuinely seem provocative and interesting, but towards the end this is undermined and becomes less interesting. Also, one would think that Hollywood had managed to get away from the inevitable romance that complicates the hero’s journey, however they have not, and this further muddles a lot of the efforts that went into trying to say something deeper.

The Dark Knight is a good entertainment film, but other than that, the idea that it poses serious questions on society and has much depth is an illusion. The film has excellent potential for all that, but eventually falls flat and undermines its own strengths for mainstream purposes. Also, others saying this is the darkest Batman film made, sure, the Joker character is disturbing, but Tim Burton’s Batman Returns (1992) was much darker and depressing. In the end, the film had much going for it, but poor choices and executions did a lot of hard to an otherwise fine film. I was a big fan of Batman as a kid, and I’m not entirely sure how this is so popular to such a mature audience, but there you go. The Joker character is fascinating at times, but falls flat throughout. Apparently there is going to be more Batman films by Nolan & Co, but I personally think this is as good as it’s going to get for this team, and will reserve my enthusiasm until they decide to make Batman: The Musical.