LaaF…Culture!

The whole world has anticipated this movie, and if you’re a nerd like me, you’ve been analyzing every trailer and watching every interview for a tantalizing morsel of what’s to come.  Because of that obsession, I had expectations and predictions going into the movie. This entry isn’t about how much of a detective I am; however, it is about the expertise of Christopher Nolan and how a skillful story teller can turn material that was originally intended as adolescent escapism into an artful meditation on beginnings and endings and life and death.

Over the course of TDK trilogy, Nolan has made us care about Batman and Gotham City. Nolan’s world has always been one of consequences, and in this movie, it is finally time to pay. As the film opens, we see Bruce physically debilitated by his crimefighting activities.  The deaths of Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent still echo through Gotham as well. Michael Caine’s Alfred gives a particularly emotional performance here, reminding us that death is a real force in this universe.

That real force comes in the form of Bane. The scenes with Bane show him to be a cunning and brutal terrorist. He and Bruce are both methodical and deliberate, but Bane is also ruthless and has a different definition of what an innocent person is.  The fight scenes between the two of them are especially visceral, fans of the “Knightfall” storyline won’t be disappointed and younger viewers might be a little disturbed.  Since Nolan has made us care about the billionaire behind the bat, we feel every punch and wonder again just how close Bruce will come to death this time.

Death is everywhere in this film.  It pervades the lives of the supporting characters, new and old.  John Blake is an orphan, Selina Kyle’s cat burglar wants to end an old life and start a new one, Commissioner Gordon grapples with how to live with a bullet in your chest and a lie in your heart, and Alfred grapples with getting older and broken promises from long ago.  Even more so, Nolan presents Gotham City on the verge of apocalypse. His grand cityscapes and massive amounts of extras portraying Gotham citizens show the viewers how a city crumbles from the macro to the microlevel.

I don’t like to use the word “epic” a lot, but this is an epic film.  Nolan puts everything into his last Batman. In a movie era that thrives on sequels and maintaining the status quo for its heroes, Nolan isn’t afraid to buck the trend.  Credit should go to him and the WB execs who were brave enough to give Bruce Wayne what he deserves: a beginning, a middle, and an end.

–The Prof.

Tags: dark knight