Batman Begins--Most Interesting Movie Made After 9/11

Rating: 8/10 (30 July 2005)

Christopher Nolan's BATMAN BEGINS is that rare thing: an ideologically subtle film from Hollywood. Unlike Spielberg's childish and incoherent War of the Worlds, which gave us images of towers toppling but did not give us any clue or any compelling reason as to why those towers should topple in THAT way in THAT film, Batman Begins avoids explicit reminders of 9/11, but compensates by putting together a coherent analysis of America's problems, and by offering a familiar but always reliable recipe for dealing with them.
The villains, it needs to be remembered, are not your run-of-the-mill criminals (Tom Wilkinson is there to remind us about THEM). They are trained assassins, dedicated to a cause, determined to bring decadent civilizations to an end. They are concerned with renewal and purification. In a word, they are fanatics.
Their training camp is located in some part of the world that is distant from the US, perhaps Tibet. In any case, the terrain is rugged and menacing, fit home for deadly assassins.
Their methods of operation are also ominous and familiar. They will vaporize the water supply and use the fumes to spread a hallucinogenic drug. This, of course, taps into very well documented American fears about terrorist attacks, fears which regularly involve contamination of the water supply.
The leader of the fanatics appears to be Turkish , but, interestingly, the really dangerous man is a Frenchman, Henri Ducard, played with brio and conviction by Liam Neeson. Why French? Well, they weren't too nice during the Iraq business, were they? Most interesting of all, Bruce Wayne's father is represented as a sort of welfare liberal, who thinks he can solve the city's problems by improving public transport. Not only does this not help, he is actually killed by (the movie suggests) one of the products of the welfare state, a man who is then let off after serving part of his sentence. At a crucial part of the film, Ducard suggests to Batman that his father let him down, that his father was to blame for what happened to Batman's parents. This suggestion is allowed to stand uncontradicted. In fact, it is only when Bruce Wayne realizes that crime must be met with stern, uncompromising justice, and not with soppy liberal mercy, that he becomes Batman. The message is clear. Soft liberalism has landed Gotham in deep danger. It has become decadent. If Gotham's best citizens don't clean up, the League of Shadows will.
Then there are Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, doing versions of their patented acts as crusty but loyal servitors. Caine makes a good Tony Blair figure, one who is efficient, loyal, somewhat ingratiating towards the boss, and knows his place.Freeman, of course, shows the black man his precise place in American society, which is pointedly NOT that of the fast-talking,power-seeking, but ultimately useless and ridiculous (black) mayor. Rutger Hauer, his cold Teutonic features now only indicating commercial ruthlessness, is a dim reminder of older enemies, from the World Wars.
The combination of fanatical assassins and a dangerously motivated Frenchman may indicate that the real danger is not terrorism per se, but a Europe that does not know that it's true destiny lies in First World solidarity.
All in all, a brilliant film, far more subtly compelling than anything I've seen on this theme in recent years. If Nolan and the scriptwriters remain true to form, who will the Joker be? Perhaps the United Nations, gaily bedecked with the flags of the countries that prefer peace to posturing.
While on the topic, it is worth considering that superheroes of ambiguous origin, associated with bats and spiders (normally arousing the reaction Yeccchhh!) have left the open, ingenuous, SuperGood, SuperClean Superman behind. Why? What was wrong with him? He wore his heart upon his sleeve, and he wasn't masked. Now, with the world itself becoming more menacing, less easy to read, superheroes like Spiderman and Batman have come into their own. They have embraced the darkness of the world, the better to deal with it. Batman appeals to beleaguered Americans as nothing else does. Brooding aloft his pillar, watching over Gotham City as it is menaced by thugs and grotesque lowlifes, he promises to hit back hard, in a way America's enemies will understand, and fear.