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Written by Nick Da Costa | Wednesday, July 30, 2008 |
While it seems almost blasphemy to say it, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is not a perfect film. Don’t get me wrong, as an endeavour it’s nothing short of spectacular. Incorporating the explosive rivalry of ‘Heat‘, the urban metropolis as character from ‘The Naked City‘, and the perfectly choreographed set pieces and examination of crime at every social strata from ‘The Godfather: Part II‘, Nolan deserves nothing less than our admiration.
Unfortunately, with all this ambition there are the inevitable slip-ups. While he is a consummate cinematic strategian thrilling the audience with perfectly orchestrated scenes like the opening bank job and the tense montage that targets the major players in Gotham, Nolan still struggles with the tactics. In his attempts to remedy the jagged, and confusing editing of 2005’s Batman Begins he has made the action too languid, a sequence of extended shots where every punch or block can be seen a mile off.
The film has a number of these tradeoffs. While the film is a startling tapestry of plot and subplot, literally pulsing with a vitality and wealth of ideas, the pacing sometimes falters; a move to Hong Kong presented as essential to the narrative actually feels like an unnecessary distraction from Nolan’s efforts to present Gotham as an encompassing entity. And it’s something he succeeds in triumphantly.
Gone is the brooding pulp and gloom of the first film, and in its place is a more realistic landscape of gleaming skyscrapers and bustling streets all captured by Wally Pfister’s beautifully slick cinematography. There’s even a new Batsuit, a change that jokingly acknowledges the lack of neck movement in the first film. But even though these are welcome amendments the added realism moves the franchise further and further away from its origins, losing the playful charm of the comics and almost unconsciously playing up the absurdity of a man in a bat costume.
Fortunately these are minor flaws and while the film fails to attain that perfection it does have as close to perfect a piece of acting as you can hope to see. Ignore the media storm and the hysteria surrounding it. Do your best to strip it away, and you will see Heath Ledger give the kind of performance that reminds you just how intoxicating it can be when an actor disappears completely into a role. His Joker, all rag doll arms and pouting, flick tongued ripped ruby lips is one of the most detailed portrayals of villainy ever seen onscreen in both diction, timing and poise. And seriously, forget the Oscars. This Joker spits on that devalued merit quest. In fact, Nolan is so enamoured with the Joker, as he is with so many morally flawed characters, that Batman becomes almost secondary to him; Bale’s tortured nobility swamped by this primal force.
The film is a framework for his wicked game created purely to destabilise Gotham. As a twist on terrorism, his own brand of shock and awe is almost too potent to be fiction. His wicked comedy can be seen in the shocking double bluff of a major character’s death, his enigmatic past which he hides behind endless iterations of his horrifying catchphrase, ‘Wanna know how I got these scars?’, and the seemingly inexplicable moments of violence that litter the narrative. His magic trick is definitely not one for the kids, but if you find yourself nervously giggling away at it, don’t be ashamed. That’s simply the power of Ledger’s performance.
With the Joker taking one side of the coin, the reverse of the Batman, the chaos to his civilisation, it’s Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent that’s stuck in the middle flipping it, giving the film’s most surprising performance as the saint destined to fall. Sharing Batman’s crusade against crime while offering Bruce Wayne’s sweetheart Rachel (now played by the far more believable Gyllenhal) the normality and love she so desires. It’s the heart of the film and Eckhart never lets it get too showy, balancing charm and moral certitude and later tragedy without becoming preachy or unconvincing. The fact he shares the screen equally with the likes of Gary Oldman, brilliantly rising above the more subservient James Gordon of the first film, is further testament to his abilities.
While the film’s climax might ring hollow to some as Batman makes a decision that changes his character irrevocably, it‘s all part of Nolan‘s subversion of the franchise. It’s an admission of how much humanity Bruce Wayne has lost to the Batman. How he has changed from a symbol to Gotham and its people to becoming a controlling, almost malignant force; a magnet for freaks. Freaks like the Joker. The man who broke the Batman.
It’s a brave director who positions the villain as the true protagonist, but in a film that revels in a shot of him leaning out the window of a cop car, face to the wind, his back to the twinkling lights of the city, accompanied by an industrial, throbbing pulse on the soundtrack, there’s a part of you that’s very glad he did.
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