what it is, and what i dreamed of

Rating: Null/10 (1 January 2009)

Strange, curious, and interesting thing that happened to me here. Well, i was a bit disappointed with the film. Not that it is a bad film. It is a solid work, and a good ride with someone who has some interesting things to say in narrative construction.
Basically: Joker is a pivot to a complex narration device, where everybody, bad guys, or good guys, is completely clueless about what will happen with them or in Gotham. The Joker plays the game, he is the central key to this plot. He defines the rules, and the rules are incidental even in his thinking, he acts randomly, kills by chance. Chaos through unpredictability. It's great. Everybody has the job to survive, except to characters: Batman, who follows Joker and tries to "unmask" the plan (without unmasking himself), and Dent, who tries directly to attack Joker, also to unmask him, but in a more direct, straightforward, "honest" way. That's why he is looked upon as the true hero of Gotham, even by the Batman. That's why he is turned over and twisted to become the 'good' enemy. It's a game of oppositions, clear sides, the two faces of everybody. The unfolding of the game is, of course, when Joker looses guidance over the unguided destinies of the facts.
So this is actually phenomenal cinematic story-telling. It's not visual, it doesn't even attempt at being fully visual as, for example, 'Batman Begins' tried (and partially achieved), but it's a great structure in the line of recent works like the life-altering 'Oldboy'.
What made me disappointed was the high expectations made by an unbelievable #4th place in IMDb top 250, and the smashing positive reviews by almost everybody i read. OK, i should have seen it coming, the reason for this was the effect of Ledger's premature death. He really shows skill and true talent here, and his character is involved in an aura of darkness that exists because Ledger deals with the contradictions of this character, the constant smile versus the darkness of spirit. He is conscious about his own acting, so he "laughs" at his character, and his role. It's very hard to do that, at least rare to watch. So everything in this film is solid. But it isn't ambitious enough to make me dream beyond certain horizons which, in my view, stay way below the "4th best film ever".
So, i have to place reviews and general opinions into perspective. If i had seen this in the theatre when it came out, before the avalanche of empowering reviews around Ledger's performance, i might have taken it for what it is. Like this, i was unfairly disappointed with this powerful film.
My opinion: 4/5
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