Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The Dark Knight – Enlighteningly Dark

Why So Serious?

Holy Smoke! Till now I thought that superhero movies are all about action, bloated egos and special effects but not deep. The dark knight which is sequel to the 2005 Batman Begins is without question one of the most demonic, pure incarnations of nightmarish instant classic movie.  I am so very over awed by the movie and still so very reeling that I cannot even put my own thoughts together and pen down anything which could be coherent even at the slightest level. I am just putting together below what I’ve heard other people say or write about it. The Dark Knight' offers a glimpse into the darker places within each of us, which might be cathartic for some, but others will simply be afraid. It is a supreme achievement in its genre. It doesn't transcend its comic book origins, but rather faithfully represents them, wholly unembarrassed to deliver its story on its own terms.

It deals with the so-called post 9-11 era and America's response to 9-11 if you want to look at it with a political undertone. Think about it - joker is the ultimate terrorist, all he cares about is destroying order; he doesn’t care about tangible things such as money or gaining power like the other mobsters. He tells us that when he burns huge pile of money in front of the mobsters, he’s introducing us to a different class of villain. That’s what the terrorists did on 9-11; they didn’t attack America because they really wanted to kill a couple thousand of people in the world trade centre or in the Pentagon, but wanted to destroy symbols of our society. They wanted to set off a chain of events, change the world order that they perceived to be unfairly dominated by America. These people and the joker are despicable and deserved to be stopped because killing people is not the way to effect change but the parallels are impossible to miss.

The political undertones are so obvious, Lucious Fox objecting to batman's use of the sonar technology to hack into to all of Gotham's cell phone conversations. Batman stating its only for this short term use, this movie is a social commentary on the patriotic act, use of torture to combat terrorism, and just the entire way the world has gone about attempting to stop the threat of terrorism.
Heath Ledger's Joker self-mutilated danger junkie, misery loves company chaos freak in hellish warpaint may be gone, but will never be forgotten. The oft-mentioned violence is not of one of gore, but more of the heart—and thus potentially more terrifying. 

The main thing is that it is a very dark movie. So dark that it binds you to your seat even when the show’s over.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Well having seen the movie, all i can say is that it was indeed an amazing movie.Though i never thought about the political link.
The only thing missing in the blog is the mention of HEATH LEDGER(the eternal joker)who passed away somedays back. He was indeed the screen stealer and m sure he deserves great accolades for his performance.
Overall a 9 out of 10 from ma side.

robkroese said...

I thought of the political angle as well, but hadn't analyzed it as deeply as you did. The interesting thing is that in this analysis Batman = George W. Bush. He's the guy who tries to do the right thing by taking down the bad guy at all costs, but ends up demonized in the end.

The Nemesing One said...

I fully agree with you and with Diesel's comment about Bush. The funny part is Hollywood and the liberals here in America could never see it that way. To them, Batman is a misunderstood hero, but Bush is Hitler. Go watch AirForce One and listen to President Harrison Ford's speech at the first where he talks about regretting not going in sooner to stop the bad guy. Then compare that to Bush going into Iraq.

Shailesh Mishra said...

@diesel/the nemesing one
Thanks guys for visiting it.

They wouldn't be liberals if they get the point!

Tairebabs said...

wow, i saw the movie earlier in the year but I never analyzed the political aspects of it. It was indeed a great movie and held me spell bound. Heath Ledger was great. May his soul rest in peace.