Extraordinary Filmaking

Rating: 9/10 (4 December 2014)

I have had a long relationship with this film, I watch it every year or so to remind myself of how far I have come as a fan of movies. I want to be entertained, enjoy myself and be impressed at the techniques directors use in order to fully bring the piece to life. I don't want to give an overly internalized, pseudo intellectual, impenetrable, pretentious review pandering to grab peoples attention. I have gained such great enjoyment and developed such a strong affection for this film over the years that it is simply unparalleled. It's this particular one I keep going back to time and time again. It is without a doubt the measuring stick on how to make a big budget studio film that is essentially about characters and their different viewpoints, fleshed out and executed flawlessly.
The reason I can never quite say to myself that Batman Begins is a perfect film is essentially a structural one, for the first 40 minutes of the film the narrative wasn't pre written for Christopher Nolan, there was a very rough outline in the source material but nothing concrete in which he would have to stick by. What we see in the opening 40 minutes is a simply sensational story of childhood, love, loss, vengeance and the search for a meaningful existence. Contained within was some of the most touchingly beautiful moments in film history in both narrative and aesthetic terms. It when we first meet James Gordon played by Gary Oldman do we see Nolan settle into more of a comic book orientated narrative setting based on "Batman: Year One" with a James Bond like tooling up from Lucius Fox played by Morgan Freeman. This part of the film though extremely engaging and enjoyable I didn't find was quite able to mesh with what was a truly brilliant opening 40 minutes.
Batman Begins is a film whose importance cannot be understated, it is without a doubt one of my favourite films and one I don't see staying on my shelf for a prolonged period anytime soon.