THE DARK KNIGHT

The most hyped and eagerly awaited film of the year, THE DARK KNIGHT, finally hit the movie halls. I went for the second day morning show and have been going ever since – four times till now! Unfortunately or fortunately, I ran out of money or else had plans of going on each day of the week. Prior to this, I had seen just two movies at Forum/Inox, the tickets are too expensive. IMDB has already put it at no.1 in the list of all-time greatest movies. I read one of the reader’s posts there – ‘Perhaps this is the only film that not only lives up to all the hype surrounding it but surpasses it’. The Times of India’s ratings are unbelievable – 4.5 out of 5 (critics) and 5 out of 5 (readers).

The principal reason behind the movie’s super-success is probably the portrayal of the character of JOKER by Heath Ledger. The death of Ledger had triggered a worldwide interest in the film and this role has definitely made him into a cult figure. Juvenile yet sinister, Ledger transcends the sophistication and ‘goofiness’ of the earlier Joker, Jack Nicholson. I was watching his interview on You Tube and he says that this role was physically and mentally very demanding and had exhausted him completely. Beside the brilliant speeches on morality, chaos and order, there are certain moments in the film which are really kick-ass :

1) the ‘pencil trick’

2) when he meets Rachel and finger-combing his hair says ‘hello beautiful’

3) just the simple utterance of the word ‘Hi’ when he comes to meet Harvey Dent at the hospital, made so other-worldly by the expression of his eyes and raised eyebrows

4) he holds a broken piece of glass pointed at a policeman’s neck and says ‘I just want to make my phone call’ when asked by the other policemen what he wants

5) he comes out of Gotham Hospital in a nurse’s dress and tries to trigger off explosions with his remote; it malfunctions for a second or two and he bangs the remote on his palm like a child does with his toy and suddenly the explosives go off!

‘Moments’ like these make us feel that THE DARK KNIGHT is, after all, Heath Ledger’s movie. One of the most remarkable dialogues of the movie is ‘Introduce a little anarchy... Upset the established order... And everything becomes Chaos. I am an agent of Chaos’. As Ledger says these words to Harvey Dent, he reminds us of Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost keen of upsetting and toppling the order of God in Paradise. It’s something like Satan meets the modern day anti-establishment punk rock, Ledger is so bloody good! When Batman asks him why he wanted to kill him, he rubbishes it by saying ‘I don't wanna kill you, I would never do that! What am I without you? To them, you are just a freak, like me. You complete me!’ Even at the end, the Joker reasserts this view when Batman doesn’t kill him although he is beaten to pulp ‘You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness and I don't want to kill you...because you are too much fun’. Evil and Good complete each other, one has no value or significance without the other. He constantly tries to say that Batman is not a hero but more of a fallen angel who is nothing but a ‘freak’ like the Joker. The psychological treatment of the movie is fucking brilliant. The Joker is self-contradictory when he says that ‘everything is part of a plan’ and later he tells Harvey Dent that he is not a schemer, he is a ‘dog chasing cars’ and confesses ‘I don’t know what to do when I get the car… I just do things’. Here lies the brilliance of the Joker, he is a careful manipulator with the inherent sadistic sinisterness, often interpreted as madness by others.


Just as Batman thinks that the people of Gotham have rejected evil, showing that goodness has not been exiled completely, when they do not blow up the ships, the Joker informs Batman that he has won because the White Knight of Gotham, Harvey, has transformed into an evil force. The Joker pushes Harvey to the psychological twilight zone of confusion until he recognizes his suppressed ‘spatial self’ in himself. Morality takes a backseat as Harvey tries to find order in a world of chaos. He is made to choose what is ‘fair’ even though it is evil. Harvey chooses the wrong path but what the Joker points out is that by being an ‘agent of Chaos’, he is being amoral and not immoral. The manner in which the Joker introduces Harvey to his ‘dark side’ lying deep in his sub-conscious self has reverberation of Pink Floyd’s THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON. The song Brain Damage has lines like - ‘The lunatic is in my head/ You raise the blade, you make the change, you rearrange me 'til I'm sane/ You lock the door and throw away the key/ There's someone in my head, but it's not me’. Sanity and insanity, if considered in the domain of order and chaos of the modern world, puts to light the fact that the fear of the unknown ‘Other’, which cannot be understood or interpreted, has often been linked to madness or insanity and it has the potential to destabilize the established order of sanity and normalcy. The Joker initiates a revolution against the normal order of society and in regard to this, he says to Batman – ‘Madness is like gravity…All it needs, is just, a little push’ (my favourite quote from the movie). Ledger is funny with his nurse’s dress and certain mannerisms but the character of Joker is very disturbing and morbid too, especially when he gives his explanation behind the scars on his face and keeps on asking in a resonating voice ‘Why so serious?’ His authoritativeness overshadows Batman when he says these words as he is confronted by the latter – ‘This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object’.

If we discuss a bit about modernist theories of Absurdism and Nihilism, we can connect the Joker’s character to it. Absurdism states that ‘The pursuit of intrinsic or extrinsic meaning in the universe is a futile gesture’ (Wikipedia) and Nihilism argues that ‘existence is without objective meaning, purpose or intrinsic value’ (Wikipedia). According to Nietzsche, objective morality does not exist in a world bereft of a higher order or God. In the absence of morality, existence has no intrinsic higher meaning or goal (Wikipedia). Hence, the Joker’s confession that he doesn’t know what to do when he finally gets an object he chases. He just ‘does things’ without completely understanding the purpose of his action or the value of the object. To the Joker, morality is just an excuse to suppress the hidden ‘inner self’. He has fun disturbing the established order of the society and he does that with an amoral stand.

As mentioned before that although the film revolves around the good guys like Gordon and Harvey Dent, the Joker is the heart and soul of the movie. Yeah, I just forgot that it’s a Batman movie after all! Christian Bale does a terrific job as a lonely and world weary Batman thinking about ‘retirement’. He is way better than Keaton and Val Kilmer who were made to behave like a ‘perfect’ and essentially moralistic superhero whereas Batman is actually a flawed superhero who has no half measures when he deals with evil. Everyone is talking about the artificial voice of Bale, but I think it’s an excellent idea since everyone should recognise Bruce Wayne’s voice as he is such a popular man. To add to all these, the gravity defying stunts are just mind blowing! A special mention must be made about Christopher Nolan for reinventing the Batman cult. A top notch script with amazing dialogues and brilliant camera work. Most of the film is shot at night and the murkiness of the chilling, dark ambiance is captured in a Dante-esque world where evil reigns supreme.

The same review on IMDB :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/usercomments-1582