Tag: TDKR

  • The masks we wear

    In TDKR, there is an interesting conversation between John Blake and Bruce Wayne, during which the former says that he knows Bruce is the Batman. He then talks of how he does not remember his mother’s death, but remembers his father’s murder well, and that the anger stayed with him. People understand, he says, but they don’t really know. They understand for a while, and they expected him to move on, to let go of the anger.  But he couldn’t do it, and when people realised that, he was sent to therapy and foster homes.

    He realised in time that for people to accept him, he would need to wear a mask that would hide his anger. He reveals that when Bruce visited the boys’ home he lived at years back, he immediately recognised that Bruce was Batman, because he himself wore a mask.

    Thanks to various experiences, I think all of us wear masks. Some of them are not because of experience, but for acceptance among others. Either ways, it works as a coping mechanism, and depending on our skills, at various levels of invisibility to those around us. Sometimes we are conscious of the mask and try to reach a place where we can live without them, by becoming strong enough to either face the past or deal with ‘acceptance’ on our own terms. Yet, despite those efforts, many a time, circumstances are such that the mask becomes the man, consciously or unconsciously. Whether or not that is a good thing is completely context dependent.

    But sometimes we are able to move on, just as Bruce was, embracing aspects of the Batman mask into his own personality. Or maybe it’s the other way – Bruce being a mask that the ‘true’ Batman personality wore. 🙂

    until next time, masker aid

  • Rise!

    It is difficult to make the last part of a trilogy when the first two have set sky-high expectations and one managed to create a larger than life character that would probably have to be one of the best in films, ever, if not THE best. But it had to me made, and 99% would like it. And there would be a 1% hating it – either because they hate crowds, or because their stance would stand out amidst the idol worship. This also includes the .01% for whom this film – objectively and for genuine reasons known to them – didn’t work. I haven’t seen any reviews in this category yet.

    So this is just a thank you note to Nolan and his team, for scripting a trilogy that took Batman out of the “Holy atomic pile, Batman!” and the more recent caricature versions to a status deserving of years of comics. For making an intelligent movie with neat hat tips to earlier villains. For wonderful visuals that let me ignore the small doses of incredulousness in the plot. For providing an awesome closure even while throwing a line of hope.

    But most importantly, for putting together a perspective on morality and the idea of justice, pursuing these themes consistently across the three movies, using characters with different worldviews, backgrounds and thinking as well as modern issues such as economic crisis and terrorism to add layers to it – the affluent Wayne/Batman can afford a moral compass and changes his path from revenge to justice, Selena/Catwoman doesn’t have that luxury but also seeks a more just balance, Bane is radical and seeks an entire wipe out, the Joker was unpredictable with seemingly no plans except chaos and showing the moral decline of society – even the white knight Harvey Dent, Ra’s-Al-Ghul abhors any sort of weakness in the delivery of justice. All have their own notions of justice, fairness and the institutions of society, institutions we have chosen but whose tools have been subverted, whose rules we try to live by have slowly become unfair and shackles those who desire justice. And thus, for the idea of the Batman as a symbol for those good people who restore our faith in humanity with their actions – “Anyone can be a hero. Even a man who put a coat around a young boy’s shoulders to let him know the world hadn’t ended”, and as an ideal.

    until next time, thus spake a fanboy 🙂

    Bonus read: Nolan’s goodbye letter to Batman