The End of All Hope

Rating: Null/10 (24 July 2008)

Without a doubt, this film is the greatest motion picture of all time. There has never been another epic or equally eloquent piece of symphonic imagery ever put to celluloid. The death of young Heath Ledger, ripped from his prime by a careless accident, drives the emotion and catharsis for us as we witness the desolation and self-destruction of his Joker on the big screen. It is life imitating art imitating life, and it gives us a reason to cheer for the bad guy, as much as we fear him. We know the tragic end of his dramatic life, and we know there can never be another way to bring his end about - it will be deft, heart-rending, and the journey to it will be a monstrous glimpse of the harsh century we have to cope with... but it will be meaningful. It is, after all, a life to be remembered. This appears to be the case, after the first weekend of The Dark Knight's release, and the film has straddled the top of this website's top 100 film list (beating out The Seventh Seal, Schindler's List, The Godfather, and other brooding commentaries of humanity's dark side),has broken records left and right at the theatre box office, and has generated talks of major awards to be administered posthumously to young Mr.Ledger. But what does it all mean? Are we such a society that we welcome a chance to applaud the dead because their final bow from the stage was a glorious one? Is the destitution of hope, as pictured by the lengths the Dark Knight goes to in order to end the destructive reign of Ledger's Joker, a cause we are willing to pick up and carry forth into that dark night? Are we hoping that the terrorists we face, again embodied by Joker, have some tragic story behind them in order to ease the turmoil, and misunderstandings, we have about their cause and their intent to destroy us? Is destruction a means in itself? More importantly, are we willing to allow this vision of Ledger to be our last? A young, tortured, nightmarish caricature of the original comical figure the Joker was meant to be when he started 60 years ago is the way we will commemorate this unbelievably talented actor's passing? Doesn't he deserve better? He certainly does deserve better, and so do we. We do not deserve the abandonment of our ability to laugh, to welcome destruction as a way of ending destruction, to go solemnly into a dimming world buried by our misunderstanding of one another. We deserve a hero, and we should be cheering for one as well.