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July 27, 2008
THE DARK KNIGHT OF THE SOUL
There is very little not to like about THE DARK KNIGHT. It's a well-crafted, gloriously entertaining popcorn movie. It lacks the somber preachiness and rushed storytelling of its predecessor, the sense that every character had to spout summaries of Aristotle's ethics until Bruce Wayne developed his own identity. The new film is fast, fun, and scary - it goes places where movies like this normally don't, all while keeping its feet on the home turf.
I keep hearing that KNIGHT has somehow transcended the genre, and it hasn't. The film still exists in a world where a helicopter can crash into about four buildings, which would no doubt kill or seriously injure at least ten people, in a major Metropolitan city, and no one seems worried about it. To put it simply, THE DARK KNIGHT is a world where the Joker can exist, and ours isn't. Our world inspires Heath Ledger's performance, but it is still a performance. In a comic book, a villain materializes because it ups the ante of suspense; this is necessary, vital to the mechanics of the story. Just don't call it realistic.
And that said, the film is remarkable - I didn't realize it was over two and a half hours long until someone told me. It keeps you in your seat, which is too bad if one bottle of water sends you to the bathroom every twenty-five minutes or so (as mine did). The "transcendent" element seems to be that characters are put in danger who normally aren't, and the realms that we consider safe prove to be fatal. The Joker, like the jingo-istic villains of the first flick, is the fear itself we have to fear (or overcome, or fight, or imprison, or kill if he offers us a loaded gun to his forehead), but he's also a pretty cool mash-up of arch criminal and face-painted baddie. He has no history or future, so he blows up hospitals and threatens to kill civic leaders. He's what happens when codes are rendered meaningless by their followers.
The word on the street based on the reviews I read is that Batman is a third party to all the happening to Harvey "I believe in . . . " Dent and the Joker, but his gadgets are on full display. I still have a few problems here - one thing I liked about the Burton movies is that Batman seemed to be jiggering up his heat seeking batarangs with his bare hands, not behind the scenes of some military-industrial operation. And the Batmobile continues to be, inexplicably, a drab tank. In the first Burton movie, Jack Nicholson mused, "Where does he get those wonderful toys?" In this one, he'd shrug and continue slashing art galleries.
Christian Bale is a bit of a bore, rightly called a secondary character in a movie that bears his name. But all the "Dark Night/Dark Knight" synonyms are helpful for explaining an internal tension that isn't really expounded as much as visualized. I'm continuing to love the way that Bruce Wayne's irresponsibility is contrasted with Batman's obsessive responsibility, and the way that Wayne has to work very hard at keeping up this image.
The fight between realism and comic-book entertainment is an old one, and THE DARK KNIGHT may be the most successful of the clash between the two opposites. It is the work of a visionary director and writer and a great cast of actors.
| By Andytown | 1:04 AM
Comments
Andytown,
Where are you??
Posted by: meerkat at August 20, 2008 5:43 PM
This is all I'm sayin':
They made bronze in the bronze age.
I made a peanut butter sandwich today.
This is the peanut butter age.
Posted by: JEP at August 28, 2008 12:06 AM