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iView Author: Elvis D’Silva (Mumbai, India)
Email: withheld

Title: The Dark Knight - Review : Embracing Darkness

Very rarely do I go into a movie theatre expecting an experience. Instead I think, ‘the promos lied’, ‘my expectations are too high’ or ‘the director/writer promises a great deal but rarely delivers.’ Yeah, ‘benefit of the doubt’ is not my strong suit. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t too impressed with what I saw of The Dark Knight in the promos and teasers. Loved the Joker make-up, was pleased with the casting of Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, was intrigued by the new vehicle but I wasn’t quite sure where they were going with it all.

And then the news of Heath Ledger’s death arrived. This is an actor whose performances I thoroughly enjoyed in movies like 10 Things I Hate About You and A Knight’s Tale. I haven’t watched Brokeback Mountain yet, mostly because I’ve never really taken to Wild West (and war) movies. It naturally became impossible to separate any Dark Knight hype from anything surrounding the tragic demise of a promising young star.

So when I settled into the theatre, I was completely unprepared. For the visual beauty, for the appearance of the Batmen, for the way the Joker is introduced, for the matter-of-fact way in which this story is told or for the revelation of the true nature of the film. None of it. I almost didn’t know how to absorb and analyze the movie at the same time. But this is a high water mark in big budget cinema that almost seems untouchable. Sure there have been films like Godfather II and The Empire Strikes Back but my reason for discounting those movies is that the atmosphere for making (and this is a ridiculously inadequate term for referring to anything made in the movie business) such an individualistic film simply doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Case in point, the execrable Hancock which looks, very nakedly, like a fantastic concept raped and pillaged by too many studio ‘notes’ and a certain ineptitude on the part of the filmmaking team. There’s none of that in Knight. The way the package is unwrapped, the fact that there’s shards of crunchy glass in the ice cream cake and the realization as the minutes count down in the storytelling that this is not going to end well (even for those of us who know the mythology of Batman) is all so utterly ‘non-Hollywood’.

The soaring music that normally heralds the arrival of the hero - not there, at least not odiously obviously. Whereas the latest Indiana Jones movie drowned us under repeated waves of the theme music, this film seems to be able to enhance moments and sequences, by extracting sound, and unnecessary drama/action from what unfolds on screen.

And this movie, which feels short even though it’s not, manages to give arcs to the stories of several characters in such a satisfying way that I’ve developed amnesia for the last time a movie managed such a feat. Harvey Dent, The Joker, Alfred, Bruce Wayne/Batman, Gordon and, to a certain extent, Rachel Dawes are all allowed their moment to shine. Granted, most of that ’shine’ is really a glint of darkness off a pitch black surface but therein lies the mastery of director Christopher Nolan and his filmmaking crew. Not since his first feature Following have I got the sense that the man was so in control of what he was allowing us to see that we would be fairly surprised by the end result. Though there really isn’t a twist in the tale, you get that feeling, in hindsight, of having watched something akin to The Sixth Sense. The nature of the film was right there, in front of you the whole time, but when it is finally revealed to you, and the end credits begin to roll, you’re going to want to go back and watch it again, armed (or burdened) by your knowledge of what transpires.

The performances range from good (Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman) to great (Aarn Eckhart and Heath Ledger) but the film is not without its problems, insignificant as they may be. My biggest grouse? Katie Holmes’s replacement Maggie Gyllenhaal. The former should not have been a tough act to follow but from the way she carries her awkward body to the way she delivers her lines to the way she wears her hair to the lined/drawn set of her face, Ms Gyllenhaal managed to make me miss the third Mrs. Cruise.

And then there is the damned Bat Suit. In a movie this big and this good, we (aspiring filmmakers like myself if no one else) see how tough it can be to translate comic book illustration into real world costume design. In the few fights the Batman gets into, it is clear that Bale (or whatever stunt double is inhabiting the suit) is given a tough time trying to actualize the agility of the Cowled Warrior. So it’s a very good thing that you’re not supposed to go see this movie to watch the Batman fighting. I also had issues with the colour timing of the composite shots featuring Lucius Fox and the monitors mapping the info for the Bat Sonar. My name is Elvis and I am a quibbler, what can I say…

The Dark Knight is not really a superhero movie (especially since Batman doesn’t have any superpowers) and it’s not really a detective story. It is the unraveling of a sadistic game, not unlike the ones played by Jigsaw in the first Saw or Dr. Hannibal Lecter in Silence Of The Lambs. In what it sets out to do and how much of that it achieves, this movie is an unqualified success.