There are as many as 50 Batman movies made in various genres, and there’s still room for another one, or more accurately still demand, judging by the takings. ‘Show me the money,’ yelled Tom Cruise. “The Batman” is showing a lot of money, way over the €200million or so it cost to make. You could build a plethora of social housing for that, you may be thinking, but most people are living lives of quiet desperation, especially these times with a pandemic and a war going on. There’s a lot of fear about. And stripped down to its essentials, “The Batman” is about fear and the journey out of it.
Cinema is a device for entertainment, empathy and escapism. For two hours or so, three hours in the case of “The Batman,” we forget our miserable lives and go to the movies to watch fear transformed to love. I mean what other theme is there?
Underneath its neon, rain-lashed noir, that’s what “The Batman” is really about. A brooding Batman, aka Bruce Wayne, has styled himself as a vigilante; vengeance is his watchword and he’s striking fear into the criminal heartland of Gotham’s dark night. However Batman is troubled. He’s wondering is he doing any good. He isn’t: fear begets fear, vengeance, vengeance; crime is on the rise – as is corruption. The thin blue line is hardly visible and there’s not a glimmer of Bruce Wayne, the dashing billionaire, hosting extravagant parties, the latest supermodel on his arm. This is a film dedicated to the interior…and to crime..
Crime has become ubiquitous, specifically reflected in the Riddler, a deviously masked man, who’s killing leading political figures horribly, because they’re corrupt, and leaving a riddle for Batman to identify more of them; the Riddler styling himself as the co-cleanser with Batman, but he’s more: he’s a mirror.
It’s often said that there are only two emotions: fear and love. ‘Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love,’ American comedian Bill Hicks put it. ‘The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.’ So fear begets two, begets conflict, begets a broken world, a broken Batman, broken because he hasn’t reconciled, that is forgiven, the unsolved murder of his parents and so he’s blocking love from entering and despite his extraordinary combat skills, he’s in pain. He can tell himself he’s prevented yet another weak guy from being beaten up, but that’s not bringing him peace. The sky is dark, the colour palette gritty; the shimmering haze of neon bouncing off the rain onto dreary edifices and the fiery explosions in the car chase scene. Mostly, though, it’s night.
But love is present: Catwoman. She too is on a vengeance mission, but together, they can learn that vengeance is not the way. Batman can teach it to Catwoman to learn it for himself and vice-versa, Catwoman can show Batman he’s not broken in her eyes. In the end, Batman and Catwoman, two souls intrinsically interlinked, clashing in dreams of being distinct, part company; Catwoman to purr in arenas new,Batman to remain in Gotham to face himself. Gotham may need him exteriorly, but interiorly, he needs Gotham.
This is not superhero Marvel, but dark detective noir blending into disaster movie. ‘Like you, I only feel real under the mask,’ says the Riddler to Batman, but in the era of masks, it’s the Batman who’s beginning the journey of unmasking himself.
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