Joker, a movie that makes you understand and even sympathize with the villain, and realize how wrong it is

Rating: 10/10 (6 October 2019)

It's funny how characters, real or fictional, that spread hate, terror and violence are canonized and idolized as heroic icons by society. Through the city streets we see people in T-shirts with the face of Pablo Escobar, a narcoterrorist who shot down a plane and detonated car bombs through the streets of Medellin while alive and on top of Colombia's drug trade. And in the movie "Joker", where we see hundreds of people forming angry clown-masked crowds to extol the same character responsible for committing murders in the fictional and chaotic city of Gotham, we can entertain ourselves and reflect on why, in a full way. of tension and applause for this amazing work of art which is the film directed by Todd Phillips.
The longest character in the movie, masterfully played by Joaquin Phoenix, is Arthur Fleck. Do not confuse it with the Joker who is played by the same actor! The character whose title the film is named is presented only at the end and is unlike anything Arthur Fleck does and represents over the course of the film in a slow and explanatory, but not boring and even justifiable construction, as the movie itself comes to. take over.
Although with constant presentations of the city's chaos and searches made by the character, there are no conflicting action scenes or big political lines that create the growing tension and mini-twists in the story. The focus of the work is the origin of her character, and she does it so perfectly that it is what motivates her stomach to wrap up after seeing her scenes. Arthur's suffering is so well announced and explored that in any scene where he can feel his release and have the least joy is captivating to those who watch him and empathize with him (additional applause for the bathroom dance scene, dancing on the stairs and the character being cheered by the criminal crowd in the burning city). The protagonist's pitying feeling is so well mounted by the script and the acting of the actor that it takes time to realize that his joy comes only from crimes and terrible acts of indefensible violence.
Arthur is a person with mental health problems and aware of it. She is such a desolate and indifferent person to society, and yet with all this, she must still pretend to be someone different from what she is, just for the world to keep up appearances of having a certain balance and equality.
It is embedded in a universe so dirty and painful that all good and sparkling parts of life are forgotten or repressed when they begin to be explored, making them overrated to a fantasy and unrealistic point when idealized, as in the delusions of the character.
It's one of the very interesting points of the movie that makes us reflect on the difference between "living" day by day with a "forced life" situation ("That's Life") and actually "enduring" these situations in a way that we no longer feel. negatively impacted by them. Arthur, like many of us in life, must live with their difficult situations and the situations of the outside world, which do not make them bearable anyway, as there is no other way out.
The ladder Arthur Fleck climbs day after day of personal trials and self-pity is not the same as the newly created Joker descends and dances fully built, graced and set free as a living and real character in the world in which Arthur was never sure whether existed.
His speeches and his planned and exhaustively rehearsed practices for society are not the same as the character can express naturally (and indifference) at the end of the narrative.
His attempts to make himself understandable and fair at the end of the fictional plot only reinforce how we as a real-world society sympathize with these imaginary characters, and therefore how we should discuss these subjects in observing real people who may share the same characteristics of character. People we pass disinterested almost every day walking the streets and do not understand how a different treatment can influence their minds that work in a unique way and can understand things in a biological and psychologically different way from others. Which makes them find the actions taken by the fantasy villain and real-world criminals justifiable.
All cinema art is part of an industry, which puts the movies we watch in two distinct categories. We have "film projects" and "artworks".
As a film project, we consider the product itself displayed on screen, the set of filmed scenes we see, entertain and can get on with our lives.
As an artworks, we have an artistic exhibition that can be explicitly ordered by our wishes as clients of a brand or then delivered by the artist as a critique or gift for the needs of society that will allow us to admire and understand in the political, social, ethical and moral context where we are currently dwelling. Joker does very well with his role in these two categories, as a great movie that we will have the pleasure of paying to see, and as the artwork that we will analyze artistically with a weight in the heart and a smile on the face. That's life!