The Joker: Return Of The Devil

 

 

You may not believe me!

Nevertheless, I know it’s him. I’ve heard about him as long as I could remember. A story about him floats in the air, since long before I was born. He has evolved through time, spread by word of mouth, and survived through many talented storytellers. The folktale reveals that he is one of the great villains who will be reincarnated someday as the agent of chaos.

The story about him was almost forgotten, dimmed with his rotten body during the Dark Age. I almost buried him too, until I heard about this guy with a scarred face, a devilish smile highlighted by a smudged crimson lipstick. People said he represents chaos, anarchy, and random injustice. He is the talk of the town, the headline of every newspaper, and the hot topic in prime time. He is disturbingly vicious yet irresistibly appealing. And he called himself, The Joker. Suddenly I had this vision.

Therefore, when people flocked to Gotham City to see the battle between –our long time hero– Batman and –the villain of our time– The Joker, I went with them too. I didn’t want to miss the spectacle of the year and I wanted to prove if the prophecy of this immortal felon is true. Is The Joker, him? Is he the reincarnation of Doctor Mabuse, who was known as the greatest criminal mastermind? Maybe it is him, finally resurrected from his grave. If it is, then I don’t want to miss a chance to meet him too.

***

For so long, I believed in Batman. I witnessed how he struggled to wage a war against his own fear and moral motives in Batman Begin. As Bruce Wayne, he hashis past. His parents were killed by a mugger. He was young and naïf. He was full of anger and wanted revenge. He thought he would do justice by killing the mugger. But he learned that there is always a thin line between justice and vengeance. And Batman IS Bruce Wayne’s thin line to do his justice. Everyone agrees with him. At least until The Joker loomed into sight in The Dark Knight, and suddenly, the thin line became thicker.

In people’s perception of justice, Batman is the man who is trying to put it right. But there’s something about The Joker’s ‘persona’ which made me realize another perspective about right and wrong, or good and bad. Batman had done his justice in his own way. He is rich, anyway. In fact, being the richest man in Gotham gives him the privilege to be extralegal, to be without jurisdiction.

He could do anything he wants. He knows ‘the rules of his society’ –or I would say the rules of Bruce Wayne’s society– and will do anything to uphold it. But what are exactly ‘the rules of Wayne’s society? If I’m not wrong, the rules are to keep their assets –or their capital in Marxist word– and their rights in its place. To keep the people where they belong to. Batman is following the spirit of the rules.

However, we are talking about true justice, about everyone’s right. Let us put Wayne’s richness aside, and the question is : if he could do anything he wants, why can’t we? While Batman is busy cleansing the Gotham’s streets full of Batmen’s wannabes – they are just doing anything they want in the name of justice -, here comes the Joker. He, who springs out of nowhere and everywhere, he is no one, yet, he is everyone. He is not a sudden-popped-up-evil though. Actually, he is a logical reaction to Batman.

The Joker said to Batman: “People see us as freaks. Both of us are freaks”. And he made his point. Somehow, they are both catalysts of chaos. It’s just that they are using different ways. In addition, The Joker wants to loose Batman’s faith that justice could be straightened up. The Joker believes that justice is a very fragile thing and it could be lost in the face of real adversity. It’s hard to believe, but somehow The Joker was not judging. He just made sure that everybody had a chance to choose. The Joker knows that there is a monster residing within all of us and he wants us to bring it to the surface and face it.

Through intricate criminal actions and elaborate schemes of violence, The Joker pushed everyone into the edge of their composures. And every single arrangement that he made resulted in ethical dilemmas and horrendous choices for the victims. One of them was when he put two groups of people in two boats.

One boat packed with the most dangerous criminals in the country and the other loaded with innocent civilians. And both groups had to decideeach other’s fate. The Joker was at ease with his twisted, perverse viewpoint and chaos-inducing way of life. Though the Joker looks like ‘just a wild dog’, philosophically speaking, he is as tricky and as smart as Batman. Even the police officer, Gordon, realizes that The Joker is right.

The Joker turns our beliefs upside down and let it explode in our faces like a boomerang. Gotham’s DA, Harvey Dent is one of The Joker’s experiments. Dent, who said : “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” The bitter sentence which is backfiring him later. The sentence that is not only referring to him, but to Batman and to everyone.

And all hell broke loose. The Joker was screwing them up. He was sabotaging the established order without fearing anything. And the most stupendous thing is I can’t really hate him. Somehow, he is right. Everything that happened in Gotham poses a logical set of questions that doesn’t need simply black and white answers.

Batman’s vision about justice is excessively fragile and I must say, utopic dream. Batman wanted to present a white knight. He wanted people to believe that black is bad, and white is good. And there’s still hope as long as there is a white knight. Therefore, he chooses to be a dark knight in order to emphasize the existence of so-called white knight. He just didn’t realize that no matter what it’s all about consequences. How stubborn he is.

I went back home, disappointed. Batman had always been my hero. And I was bitter about the fact that… maybe…he is not anymore. Oh, this Joker had really swayed my common sense, I guess. That’s the moment when Doctor Mabuse came in to my mind. Call it a premonition or whatever, and forgive me if I’m wrong, but the Joker resembled every idea of Doctor Mabuse.

***

Doctor Mabuse first appearance was in 1922, created by novelist Norbert Jacques but introduced by one of the greatest storyteller, Fritz Lang. Mabuse came into being for the first time in Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler: The Picture of Our Time. Lang acquainted him as The Great Unknown, master of disguise, a criminal genius who’s controlling people with his ability to hypnotize. He uses gambling as one means to attain his ends.

Like The Joker, nobody knows who he was. He was nobody, yet he was everybody. He was there, everywhere. He could be a broker who manipulates and throws the stock exchange into disarray. He could be a Jewish huckster. He could be a sick old man. He could be a professor in the university. He could be everyone. People who had a chance to meet him described him as a mysterious man with eyes evil like a devil.

For him, everything in the world was boring except one thing: the game with people and their faith. He liked to agitate the devilish subconscious and unconscious in humans. His vassals consisted of drug addicts, thieves, schizophrenics, blinds, depressives, and many kinds. He had the unbelievable suggestive power to force people to do things that were in an absolute conflict with their nature. Mabuse believed there’s no such a thing like love and luck. There’s only passion and the will to gain power. Once he asked a Countess: Should I give you a prove of the power of will? And he did it, with a diabolical scheme and pitiless act.

In The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, he acknowledged: “the last purpose of the crime is to put up the limitless rule of the crime, a state of complete insecurity and anarchy, built up on the smashed ideals of a world which is sentenced to its downfall. When the people are ruled by the terror of crime and went insane because of the horror and dismay, when the chaos became the supreme law, then the rule of crime has come”. He always needed a sensation of a very special kind. His aim was to swirl laws and gods like withered leaves, just like The Joker did with Gotham’s laws and heroes. Mabuse wanted the citizens to overthrow the state, to bring this decayed world down into a chaos. He planed his deeds precisely and accurately.

For people who know the Joker, the description of Mabuse sounds familiar, isn’t it? Of course there are some differences. The Joker is a scoundrel of our time. He has appeared in the globalization age and terrorism epoch where everybody —from people on the street to politician on the high above—talked about it and feared it like gossips, but consumed it like popcorn. By all means, The Joker uses all the tools and strategies from this generation: remote control, bazooka, mobile phone, high tech equipment, etc, whilst Mabuse was a villain after World War I.

It was a hard time. It was a time of deepest despair, of hysteria, of cynicism, of unbridled excesses for Germany, the country where Mabuse was created. The government of Weimar Republic fought against left and right rebels. Mabuse is an archetype rogue of this period. According to Fritz Lang, Mabuse is the worst brother of Faust. Mabuse is a Nietzschean Übermensch in a bad sense.

But on the other hand, he is also a product of the total destruction and post-war social decadence, when severe will to live was so powerful and money was –as it still is now– all that matters. It made him remain the hugest and most trivial materialist amongst the demons. He was the most memorable criminal in German cinema. Now The Joker is the most serious pretender to the throne.

Both, The Joker and Dr. Mabuse share the same ideals for the society of their time and share the same ways to reach their goals. You may not believe me if I say, The Joker is Mabuse’s reincarnation. You may not believe me if I say, The Joker has a German ancestor.

So, why so serious? ***

also published in www.rumahfilm.org

3.10 To Yuma

 

Christian Bale is one of the few actors worth watching just for the sake of his acting. He is never anything less than interesting in his performance. In The Machinist, the movie that makes me notice him, he played an insomniac who lost a lot of weight. He was not just skinny in that movie, he was a skeleton.

But he was as great as Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins (soon will be in The Dark Knight). Bale manages to transform himself into Wayne and make the character seems so real and more human than just a character blast from a graphic novel. He always gives unusual traits to any character that he played. Obviously, I will always be in the line for his movie

And here he comes as Dan Evans in a remake of one of the most famous western movie, 3.10 To Yuma. Once again, Bale gives his best performances as prideful father and husband who lost confidence and had the opportunity to show to his family that he is still a man with pride. He is very intense, layering performance in order to show the emotional complex of Evans, and still looks like its a part of him. Am I sounds like a worshiper? I hope not, because he deserves it.

Ok, enough, I will stop glorify him now. Maybe because its been long time I didn’t watch western movie (I don’t remember when is it the last time I watched western? There Will Be Blood? McCabe & Mrs. Miller? ), but 3.10 To Yuma for me is great! I like it very much thanks to (of course) Bale and Russell Crowe. They seems to get better and better, aren’t they?. But I won’t forget the rules of others such as Ben Foster as Charlie Prince, Peter Fonda as Byron McElroy and a teenager actor, Logan Lerman as William Evans.

They are all fit so well in this movie which combines intense character study and typical western suspense. Ben Wade (Crowe), a gangster leader, a ruthless killer who can be very charming, sexy and witty. Dan Evans (Bale) is a forgotten man who lost his leg, a simple but complex as a man who is forced to swallow a lot of his pride to maintain the survival of his family. As complex as Alfred Borden, the character he played in The Prestige. Who else could do this better than Bale ?.

And then there is William Evans (Lerman), the son of Dan, whom had grown ashamed of his father as Dan was not as cool as Wade. But he will realize that both have similar morals, characteristic and pride and the film (or the scenario?) managed to make all the main characters respect each other. They learn that nothing is black and white when it comes to heroes and villains.

Along the way to Yuma, Ben Wade will witness and be irreparably impacted by the true bond between a father and son, Dan Evans will facing his own weakness –things that he’s trying to ignore or even forget– reflected by Wade, and William Evans will realize the integrity and tenacity of his father whom he was ashamed of while witnessing the cruel and brutality of the man he secretly admires.

Yes, 3.10 To Yuma indeed a Hollywood-moral-lesson-style. But James Mangold was trying not too banal in terms of directing the moral lessons, instead he make it as normal as it should be. He got the best out of his actors. And he made it.

(Waiting desperately to watch Killing Pablo where Christian Bale will be confronted with Javier Bardem (as Pablo Escobar)….hmmmm, hihihihihi… its gonna be fun!!!).

(c)akurini