'Decent men in an indecent time' (a.k.a. WARNING: Fucking Long Post Up Ahead)

Okay, so most of you should definitely recognise the picture at the top of this post. If you don't, then you should definitely go and watch The Dark Knight. It's not too late for you. Anyway, spoilers beckon is what I'm trying to say.

So yes, it's finally here - the first part of my series on Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy and I will start with what's widely considered the crème de la crème of this movie series, 2008's The Dark Knight or TDK for short. Now, there's a lot of ways to view this movie, all of them valid to varying degrees: the epic struggle between Batman and his arch-nemesis the Joker, a pertinent social/political commentary, a crime drama that just happens to feature Batman or the movie that transcended the superhero genre. You could even describe it as the story of how a guy dressed up as a bat tries to stop a homicidal clown, if you're feeling cheeky. In short, it's a movie with a lot of layers to it and as a guy who likes being given food for thought by the movies he watches (read, hipster), this film is at the very top of the list of my all-time favourites. The multi-faceted nature of it also makes it a bitch to write about seeing as I could really just go on and on about it and it would probably take up at least two blog posts (consisting of at least 1000 words each). But it's Christmas, so I will have pity on you. Consider it a gift. This particular post will probably still be fucking long though.

I will attempt to look at the film through a prism that I don't think has been talked about as much as others, although considering how vast the Internet is, I'm probably very wrong. Anyway, enough with the cryptic blabbering, what I'm trying to say is that The Dark Knight is a paradoxical movie (in a good way). In more ways than one. Many people view it as the quintessential Batman movie and I remember hearing a lot of folks saying back in 2008 that 'this is the way Batman should be!'. And it's hard to argue with that: Bruce Wayne spends most of his screen time in the batsuit; all of the main aspects of the Batman character are emphasised (to varying degrees), from his colossal ability to kick ass to his detective skills, to his remarkable ability to appear/disappear out of/into thin air. And then you also have the presence of Batman's most iconic villain, the Joker, who puts the 'essential' into 'quintessential'. Despite this, it's interesting to note that TDK is such a thorough deconstruction of the idea of Batman it's not even funny. For one, everything bad that happens in the movie is basically his fault. The Joker is a direct response to Batman's extreme and theatrical brand of vigilantism, he is the embodiment of the 'escalation' police commissioner Jim Gordon was talking about at the end of Batman Begins (or BB - the subject of my next post), and he goes on to terrorise the city and blow up a lot of crap throughout the movie, including Batman's girlfriend (yes, I know that sounds funny), not to mention turning Gotham's citizenship against him. The villain even mentions this dynamic at various points in the movie: 'you complete me' and 'this is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object' he says to Batman, as Bruce comes to see the madness he's brought upon the city ('I was meant to inspire good, not madness, not death'). To top it off, Bruce initially dismisses the threat posed by the Joker, gravely underestimating him with a casual 'Criminals aren't complicated' line (which is a nice throwback to Ra's Al-Ghul's philosophy back in Batman Begins). What's more, the only 'good' that Batman seems to inspire amongst the citizens is a bunch of idiots dressed in hockey pads (note: Batman does not wear hockey pads) who can't even fight for their lives and use guns. So in other words, a perversion of Batman himself.

Then we have Harvey Dent, whose character is in direct contrast with Batman - he is the hero with a face that Gotham's citizens look up to, the one who battles corruption and criminality as ruthlessly as Batman, but within the boundaries of the law. If the parallels weren't clear enough, both Batman and Dent are directly referred to as Gotham's 'Dark Knight' and 'White Knight' respectively. So it's clear that Batman's presence in Gotham is practically redundant with Harvey Dent around (Bruce recognises this). But this all becomes moot by the end of the movie, as the latter is corrupted by the Joker and becomes the murderous vigilante Two-Face. In other words, Batman is indirectly responsible for Dent's fall as well, seeing as how the Joker is a direct response to the former's brand of vigilante justice. In the end, Batman can only defeat the villain by turning to morally dubious and desperate methods, such as spying on the entire city and creating a lie in order to preserve Dent's reputation in the eyes of Gotham's citizens.

There's this undeniable air of cynicism to the movie and it's brought about by aspects such as the hero bringing copious amounts of grief, inadvertently of course, upon the city he aims to protect. This is again pointed out by a character in the movie, namely Jim Gordon's wife, who exclaims: 'You brought this craziness on us, you did!'. This cynicism is blatantly spelled out through the Joker's philosophy, which he details in that famous interrogation scene: 'When the chips are down, these uh, these 'civilised' people, they'll eat each other'. So basically, what he's saying is that society is inherently flawed and that shitty circumstances will bring out the worst in people (also, if given the chance, people will fuck each other up). In other words, 'deep down, everyone's as ugly as him' and he sets out to prove just that through his ferry experiment. Towards the end of the movie, he has two ferries (one filled with ordinary citizens, the other with criminals) rigged with explosives. The catch is that he hands each group of passengers the detonator to the other boat's explosives thereby putting the people's fate in their own hands. Of course, he also keeps another detonator for himself so as to actually give the boats a reason to want to blow each other up (he details his entire plan over the ferries' loudspeakers). The ferry scene has been criticised by some viewers for its rather overtly dramatic execution, but the truth is that it's an essential sequence and one of the only genuine rays of light in an otherwise very cynical and dark movie. The people on the ferries decide to NOT blow each other up, to the Joker's utter surprise (and frankly mine as well, because I'm convinced that in a real-life situation, either one or both of the ferries would've been blown up) and this is basically Nolan's way of saying that despite all the ugliness that the world is obviously plagued by, there IS good out there. This idea is further emphasised by the fact that Batman is the only one who has faith in the people to not blow each other up, as Jim Gordon is already on scene together with a bunch of SWAT teams ready to intervene. Bruce Wayne's unerring faith in the people of Gotham is also one of the only positive aspects about the character throughout this movie. The ferry scene is the moment where Batman's crusade is vindicated: the people of Gotham prove themselves to be worth saving and he is consequently proven to be right to place his trust in them despite all the crap that he's been through, both physical and psychological. Like I said, the scene is rather unrealistic in its outcome and that's why it stands out; it's like Nolan just stopped and said 'alright, enough with all this doom and gloom crap, time to show the viewers that there is indeed hope in this shitty city...also, time to prove Batman right for a change in this film'.

In fact, it's towards the end of the movie that Batman is brought back together. We have his aforementioned faith in people, which is all the more remarkable when you consider just how close one of the ferries came to blowing up the other. The possibility of either one deciding to blow up the other was distinctly present, and still Batman chooses to trust in the good of people. And then we have his actions at the very end. Never mind him saving Jim Gordon's son from getting shot, the fact that he's even willing to take the fall for Harvey's murders as Two-Face is very powerful and a rather tragic turn of events. And this is because, in the end, it turns out that Batman is indeed the hero Gotham deserves as he willingly chooses to look like a villain in the eyes of the public so the city does not lose faith in its 'true hero'. The shocked expression on Gordon's face as Batman tells him to 'call it in' offers a glimpse into how emotional this turn of events is. To recap, Batman's been through a LOT of shit before this moment: he was pushed to the edge of his psychological boundaries by the Joker's machinations; he blames himself for the loss of his childhood friend Rachel (his romantic interest and last hope for a normal life) - who was basically the last shred of the innocence and life he had before the murder of his parents (Bruce Wayne, lest we forget, also had his parents shot down before his eyes when he was freakin' 8 years old); he is indirectly responsible for the tragic fall from grace of Gotham's one true ray of hope in years, Harvey Dent; not to mention the fact that the Joker turned the city against him. Oh, and he's also found the time to beat up a bunch of SWAT teams, get mauled by some rottweilers and have his wind pipe almost crushed by the Joker beforehand. And after all that, he's still willing to become the villain for the good of the city. 'You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain' comes to mind.

There's another slight paradox in there as well. As previously mentioned, Harvey is made out to be Gotham's one true incorruptible hero throughout the film, as well as a counterpart to Bruce Wayne/Batman. Moreover, they both pursue Rachel as a romantic interest. Harvey proves to be anything but incorruptible though, pursuing murderous justice against those he considers responsible for Rachel's death (she had also told him she'd chosen to marry him, seconds before she's blown up) following a 'final (metaphorical) push' into madness courtesy of the Joker. So it's rather paradoxical that Batman's the actual incorruptible hero all along even as he takes the blame for Harvey's crimes. I also see this as the movie telling us that, at the end of the day, Bruce is the better of the two men: he doesn't cross that line of no return between murderer and vigilante despite having to go through the same emotional trauma as Dent and then some. He's very close to crossing it earlier in the movie when Joker urges Batman to run him over with his bike, with the latter deciding against it at the last moment basically. That moment pays off in their final confrontation, when Batman saves the free falling Joker, prompting the villain to say 'You [Batman] truly are incorruptible'. It's here that The Dark Knight truly earns its superhero movie tag: Batman's one true superpower is his unbreakable spirit (well, I guess his money too, but that's not very inspiring) and in the end he proves to be the better man.

It's inspiring stuff and this is a descriptor I've not often seen used when discussing TDK. Inspiring is also the way I would describe the feeling immediately after seeing this movie at the cinema: it's a little hard to describe, but it was something along the lines of 'my faith in humanity has been restored'. There's this underlying theme of hope and optimism throughout the movie that comes in stark contrast with its cynical and bleak outlook. Harvey foreshadows this theme with the line 'The night is darkest just before the dawn' and it is prevalent in the ferry scene. Beyond all the theatricality (clowns dressing up as nurses and guys growling in batsuits in the case of TDK), the spectacular action scenes and explosives inherent to any superhero flick, The Dark Knight basically tells us that being cynical is all well and good, but without taking a chance and having faith in people, good things will not come about and our perspective will remain bleak. It's a situation which we've all been confronted with at one point of our lives or another and this is one of the movie's main strengths, its capacity to tap into a reality of the human condition (and society as a whole) and to get it across even with all the other things it has going for it. 'Sometimes truth isn't good enough, sometimes people deserve more' is another example of such a situation. It's one of the reasons I love this film to death and really, I could just go on and on about the various aspects of this goddamn movie, but I'll stop here, as my initial promise of this being a fucking long post has been fulfilled.

I'll leave you with the epic (and cheesy) monologue that concludes this flick, which actually doesn't come off as cheesy thanks to the nature of the movie it's said in, the timing of it and Gary Oldman's godly delivery: Chills, I tellz ya'!