Review of The Dark Knight (2008) by Jetblackfrost — 26 Nov 2014

This film is a beautiful metaphor for the greatest struggles of life itself; I have recently discovered that Nolan's masterpiece seems to address the problems created by a figurative or literal multiple personality disorder. We have three different angles of perspective on life, all grabbing for Rachel, who represents love, in one way or another.

Harvey Dent is essentially a saint, an idyllic hero driven by hope and compassion that has presumably only been able rise up to the challenge of fixing Gotham City due to the changes set in place by Bruce Wayne, who sees the world for what it truly is: a hellish, twisted roller coaster of synthetic euphoria and very real pain. He too, though, is driven by his positive emotions and, because he has hope in his heart that he can "save the day and get the girl," he decides to do what he can to make the ride as comfortable for the rest of us as he possibly can, even at the cost of his own life.

But The Joker sees things differently. He is, if not more so, just as intelligent as the Batman. He understands that at least for him, there is nothing to be enjoyed in life. Selfishly he decides that he must drag everyone else down with him.

It's easy to catch the symbolism here, as it's almost literal (and it somehow harks back to the Green Lantern mythos, though I am unsure of whether this is deliberate): Harvey is the side of a man that represents positivity - hope, compassion, and love, which combine to form "Order." Bruce represents balance between all emotions, with a central focus on will. The Joker represents negativity - fear, avarice and rage, which combine to form "Chaos." Later in the Dark Knight Trilogy a fourth personality is introduced, but that is not what we are discussing here.

The beginning is quite literally the chaotic personality's entry into the world, taking advantage of everything that he can in order to do... nothing in particular. That's what's so excellent about this story! The goons would be his friends in the real life interpretation of it, and when he kills them or has them turn on each other, this is the loss that happens when you "turn to the dark side," or choose to give up on the world, as The Joker has done.

But enough metaphorical interpretation, let's talk about the literal aspects of the film. The first noticeable thing to me was not the direction, the acting, the cinematography nor the editing or action sequences, but Hans Zimmer's score for the film, which was at first deliberately disgusting, with the use of what sounds like a wire being strung for eternity, abused violins and electric guitar, but ultimately beautiful, with the most moving piece of music heard in "Like A Dog Chasing Cars" since Krypton's theme in Superman by John Williams, and until "Time" from Inception - yet another Zimmer theme! Mocked as it may be, his dense string ostinato sequences left me breathless.

But back to the story, I'm going to skip a huge chunk and get right to the meaty part. I wish I could cue Zimmer's "Horn of Doom" here to alert you to the impending spoiler. Don't read if you haven't watched the movie!

Rachel is indirectly killed by Joker. While he is being interrogated, the timer ticks down to the explosion of two buildings, each with one hostage inside: Gotham's White Knight, and Harvey and Bruce's only known love.

Here is the great metaphor of the entire trilogy: Hope. Moving on. Loving more than just one - something both Harvey and Batman are, at the moment, incapable of doing.

The Joker takes advantage of Rachel's death and Harvey's disfigurement (as you may remember, half of his face is burned off in the fire of the explosion), and convinces him to embrace the chaos of the world around him, and essentially, give in to evil.

He accepts this offer.

Skipping ahead to the final acts of this movie (and it has oh so many), we have The Joker about to kill dozens if not hundreds of people on a couple of ferries, who represent the good and bad sides of society, and Harvey, the hero, twisted into wanting vengeance on Commissioner Gordon.

Once again I will take a break from the story. Let's talk about the other aspects.

Is this movie effects-heavy? Surprisingly, no. You'd think it would be, given that, it's Batman. But in fact, it relies on practical effects more than anything else. For example, when the massive truck that the Joker is in gets flipped, it is not done with CGI, but with a spring of all things, that shoots it upwards.

I won't even say anything about the acting - I want you to watch it, because in all honesty, words could not do it justice. In my mortal explanation of one of the various metaphors presented by this film (and believe me, there are other ways to interpret it - mine is just the most literal, emotional example), I have butchered Mr. Nolan's work, so I will just say that you MUST keep an eye on Heath Ledger.

THE VERDICT:

Direction: 9.5.

Acting: 10.0.

Cinematography: 9.0.

Editing: 9.0.

Soundtrack: 10.0.

Overall: 9.