A New Mythology

Rating: 8/10 (30 July 2008)

'The Dark Knight', Christoper Nolan's second venture into the Batman universe has received deservedly rave reviews, popular consent and is climbing the all time blockbuster chart at such a staggering rate, you can imagine the franchise accountants tirelessly counting the millions coming in every day and rubbing their hands raw. The success of the film is partly due to the fact that it works on so many levels  as a summer blockbuster, a crime epic, a superhero movie and a psychological thriller.
However, what the Nolan brothers have also created here is a post-modern mythology that touches upon the disillusioned Zeitgeist of clearly defined morality. The film can be summed up in the words of Heath Ledger's spellbinding Joker: "This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object". In this battle there are no winners, it is the perennial struggle of a precarious equilibrium that manifests itself though literature and film in simple terms as the fight between 'good vs. evil'  the traditional ground of any hero story. But 'The Dark Knight' peels away this superficial layer revealing the twisted insides of this moral clockwork. Here, any shift in balance between chaos and order will trigger an equal and opposite reaction and that is why the dichotomy of the Joker on one hand and Batman on the other, as archetypes of these two sides, is so compelling. The clashing of such tremendous wills can only result in a storm that will sweep all bystanders into its destructive confrontation. No one remains untouched and the transformations forced on all affected characters penetrate the core of their being  their values and beliefs. It challenges their commitment to ideals and principles, impersonal concepts which leave no room for personal considerations.
The Joker, who explicitly proclaims himself as 'an agent of Chaos', has shed any notion of personhood  no name, no personal history (in the film anyhow  even the origins of his disfigured face are never defined, an element repeatedly played with). He has completely given himself over to becoming an ideal, a mechanism of destruction. He fully comprehends what it means and moreover what it takes to 'become more than a man', which was after all the original intention behind Bruce Wayne's creation of his alter ego, and in 'The Dark Knight' he pushes Batman to finally step into this role. The Joker clearly realizes their interwoven destinies: 'You complete me,' he explains to Batman, and that they are the embodiment of the antagonistic forces that shape the moral universe. This insightful understanding of the Joker makes him such a compelling character, translated so breathtakingly onto the screen by Ledger's towering performance. He is not an irrational psychotic, but frighteningly convincing in his nihilistic reasoning, appealing to the chaotic subconscious desires of human nature in a way that the audience is disconcertingly attracted to him while being repelled at the same time.
That Nolan is able to present material of such gravitas and complexity in a thoroughly enjoyable summer blockbuster package filled with seriously 'cool' action scenes, exhilarating IMAX sequences and a gripping two and a half hour long plot is a stunning feat of film-making. He succeeds in capturing the essence of the great super hero story, the mythos created by individuals who are driven to perform deeds that exceed the conventional limits of human capability. It is too often forgotten that the heroism of these figures does not lie so much in their pyrotechnic fights with villains, but in the struggle to come to terms with their responsibilities and the consequences of taking up the mantle that binds them to being an incorruptible agent of principles at all costs. 'The Dark Knight' achieves this and then some.