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Rating: Anyone who has read some comic books knows well that some of them contain true literature, sometimes literature of exceptional value. Chris Nolan, together with his brother Jonathan Nolan (the real mastermind behind the project), has managed to capture on film a piece of dark-comic literature, delivering to posterity an exceptional movie, despite some commercial tricks (like the truck flipping over itself), some overly didactic dialogues, some exaggerations on the dark sides of society, and some misplaced irony ("Taking the Lamborghini? Much more discreet...").
The story unfolds over three days. Very fast-paced, without a moment’s breather, contrary to the story of the previous "Batman Begins" which develops over seven long years, during which our hero learns to know himself and cope with his demons. The dark Gotham City needs Batman to defeat a paranoid schizophrenic, Thomas, who calls himself Joker (Heath Ledger). The story is not so far from reality: sixty years ago didn't Europe, to defeat the German joker, perhaps ask for help from the dark knight called the USA?
The plot mercilessly describes, almost to the point of indulgence, how ambiguous the human heart can be and how selfishness can nest in there, regardless of one's social class. The theme is not particularly original. It's the reiteration of the ying-yang: there is no completely evil heart, and there is no completely good heart.
This philosophical maxim finds a concrete embodiment especially in one of the final scenes, that of the two ferries: on one of them, a "respectable person" thinks only of saving himself and has few qualms about blowing up, using a detonator mechanism, the neighboring ferry carrying prisoners. Conversely, in this second ferry, we find one of these prisoners who throws away his detonator mechanism without thinking twice, showing a morality that the middle-class man on the other ferry initially did not display. Sometimes, a criminal can have more virtues and morals than many respectable people. And this too is not a particularly original theme.
We are not at the cosmic-theological pessimism of "Seven" but we are not too far off. Particularly disheartening is the portrayal of the police, with some of its members making Judas's betrayal look like child's play. The world is certainly not Paradise, but in this generalized corruption almost taken for granted, the director frankly exaggerated.
However, beyond the story, which should be considered only a pleasant frame, it is the character development by Nolan that deserves celebration.
The (apparently more important) character is the Joker, a figure who surpasses the banality of the ordinary criminal who, out of laziness to work, decides to profit (and elevate himself socially) on human weaknesses: drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling. But, at the same time, he is too intelligent to be a banal serial-killer who wants to spit hatred on the world that he received in his childhood, and then do something to get caught. Joker, as described by Alfred (Michael Cane), is not interested in doubloons but only in destroying the entire world. His intelligence is indeed too vast to be satisfied with destroying the lives of a few individuals or profiting from crime. If you are a genius and you apply yourself, you are destined for great things. But great things do not necessarily mean good things. That is a choice, and Joker made his choice.
Next to Joker, we find another character, much more interesting because more common and especially because it questions all of us: Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), the spotless knight. Bruce Wayne, (who knows the human soul like few others and in this knowledge is much closer to Joker than to Dent) studies him to perfection and understands that he can be trusted. Bruce Wayne knows very well that Batman cannot be the future of Gotham. It is he himself who tells Dent that perhaps he does not realize his importance for the future of the city: "You are the hope man that I will never be." Harvey Dent is the right person, a good one, an honest, and an idealist. A man who never reflected on what lies hidden in the human soul, too busy doing good to think about evil. And this ignorance of himself will be his downfall.
A good man like Dent, but with the same knowledge of the human soul as Batman is Mr. Lucius Fox, the (true) good guy in our story. Fox means fox, but he proves to be always very different from what his surname would suggest. He is like Dent (without too visible inner darkness...) but knows well he is not omnipotent; he knows he can fall at any moment. He is a humble Harvey Dent, thanks to his age. Batman has so much trust in him to give him his "Big Brother," in a dialogue that should be carved in letters of large type in the history of psychological cinema:
- "Beautiful, isn't it?"
-"Beautiful, immoral, dangerous. You have turned every cellphone in Gotham into a spy microphone".
-"And into a high-frequency generator – receiver.".
-"You have taken my sonar concept and applied it to all the phones in the city. With half the city giving you signals, you can map Gotham. It is wrong.".
-"I need to find that man, Lucius.".
-"Yes, but at what cost?".
-"The database is encrypted 'null-key.' Only one person can access it.".
-"That is too much power for one person.".
-"That is why I gave it to you. Only you can use it.".
-"Spying on thirty million people isn’t my job.".
-"This is an audio-sample...[to triangulate the Joker’s position]".
-"I will help you this one time but you can no longer count on me. If this machine remains at Wayne Enterprise, I’ll resign".
-"When you are finished, type in your name".
Mr. Fox knows that for a higher purpose one can make a compromise to avoid a worse evil. When Lucius, with his small compromise, shows his small darkness, Batman reveals the sunny part of his dark soul. He was conscious of the immorality of what he was doing, and thus had already inserted into the computer a self-destruct device that will activate only when Mr. Fox enters his name. Batman already knew that Mr. Fox would agree to help him.
With Mr. Fox's help and a bit of luck, Batman thwarts Joker’s plan. Joker falls from the building, but Batman saves him: dark knight, yes; immoral executioner, no. Joker has lost, and Batman, despite having lost his beloved Rachel - another terrible burden of guilt added to the indelible guilt that has gripped him since childhood for failing to save his parents - did not stoop to the level of his enemy’s malevolence. There could not have been a better ending.
The following dialogue is also archival-worthy for its psychological content and Heath Ledger's infernal interpretation, absolutely worth seeing in the original language:
- "Couldn't you just let me fall? You won't kill me out of that misplaced sense of self-righteousness."
-"This city just showed you that it's full of people ready to believe in good,".
"Until they lose all hope. Until they see what the hope man, Harvey Dent, has done. Don’t tell me you thought I’d risk Gotham’s soul in a fistfight with you. I took Gotham’s white knight and brought him down to our level. You see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push..."
And Harvey Dent has indeed gone mad. He has killed five people: he, the white knight, spotless. None of us can predict our behavior in extreme situations. Inside us, there is a Saint Francis and a Hitler, with various shades of gray. It’s up to us to choose what to be. Joker made his choice for wickedness; Batman his choice for darkness; Harvey never truly decided what to be; he just believed he was unbeatable. Here’s what excessive self-confidence can do.
But Batman cannot allow Gotham to lose hope. Without hope, there's no reason to do good; it is Joker’s despair that made him Joker. If we take hope away from Gotham, there will be more Jokers, and even from prison, he’ll see his triumph.
Batman must prevent Harvey from losing it completely. He tries to make him understand by touching his heart: "Joker chose you because you were the best of us because he wanted to prove that even a good man could fall. You’re the one holding the gun...”. Harvey still has a choice. Not all is lost. But Harvey does not want to let go of his guilt (for Rachel’s death), that guilt that Batman has learned to live with for years. And here's the difference between the two.
Harvey dies, and with him, hope. Joker has won. But Joker cannot win. Here then the knight becomes a victim to save Gotham. He has felt guilty for his parents’ death for decades. He knows what it means to feel guilty, and so he takes on himself the blame for the five murders committed by Dent. "Because he can take it," Commissioner Gordon says to his child.
Harvey Dent's reputation is saved, and with it, the hope of Gotham's inhabitants. Because the truth is not the most important thing; because the people, to keep hoping, deserve more than the truth.
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