Ever since this new solo take on the caped crusader was announced, many had already it dismissed due to there being far too many past adaptations of the character (with films of varying qualities). Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy brought the genre to a new level of storytelling, and the DCEU iteration of the character stood out only visually. Funnily enough, none of these iterations ever explored some of the most essential aspects of the character, the most prominent one being everything world’s-greatest-detective. Regardless, what we forget about the art of storytelling is that it’s not as much about the authenticity of what happens in the summary of a story, but more so about the authenticity of how it all happens, and the craft itself. One of the greatest films of all time, Jeanne Dielman 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels, had one of the simplest premises ever in a film, but it still remains one of the most authentic pieces of cinema due to how specific it is to the character it portrays.
Matt Reeves’ The Batman exceeds and/or defies almost all of the expectations one may have had from yet another take on the character. Which considering his past masterworks (War for the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Let Me In), isn’t as much of a surprise. But The Batman is a new high for even Reeves. Reeves, alongside Peter Craig, has written characters that feel personally crafted to the fullest, and only arrive after being these iconic characters. Their foundations are extremely personal. What the script also excels at is how it embeds theatricality similar to Batman: The Animated Series within the characters. The beauty of the film is how seriously it takes this theatricality.
From the get-go, cinematographer Greig Fraser brilliantly visualizes the soul of the film. This is hands down the most expressionistic superhero film to date. Not only is it Gotham that has a personality of its own, even the batmobile feels possessed. A particular batmobile sequence in the film is one of the most passionate vehicular scenes of all time. It’s barely concerned with familiarizing the viewer with the chase’s geography or with advertising the vehicle chasing it and is ultimately focused on using the vehicle to channel the hero’s psyche. And to be frank, regardless of how great some past Batman films have been, environment and gadgets have only been complementary, and are often treated as products to promote the caped crusader’s badassery. Here, the style adds so much to the narrative, and in no way is it a tropey caricature. Even the amount of rain can only be rivaled by Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. The dystopia of this Gotham is something we’ve never seen before.
Robert Pattinson’s performance as both Batman and Bruce Wayne is hands down the most heartfelt and nuanced. This Bruce an introvert to the fullest, and barely expresses, and yet within all of that hard exterior, Pattinson manages to convey so much with the timing of what, how, and where he looks. It's the little things in this performance that do the magic. As Batman, he channels both; rage and calmness with perfection. He’s as much a part of this craft as Matt Reeves himself. Paul Dano as Riddler/Edward Nashton comes second only to Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix as their respective iterations of The Joker. He’s equal parts menacing and hilarious as the envy-driven villain who’s also obsessed with riddles and Ave Maria. Even characters like Gordon (played by Jeffrey Wright) and Carmine Falcone (played by John Turturro) greatly manage to stand out. But the heart of this film is Zoe Kravitz’s Selina Kyle/Catwoman. The character provides a great grey area to the morally divided city of Gotham, and Kravitz pulls that off greatly. With her dynamic with Batman considered, The Batman is the most professionally sexy film of the superhero genre. Colin Farrell as Penguin may not have a very large role, but he still manages to stand out and is wholly unrecognizable in terms of both appearance and performance.
To add further to the film's expressionism comes Michael Giacchino's blazing original score, which may be second only to his work in War for the Planet of the Apes. It's one of the few aspects in the film that rely on familiarity, but it's more so about the way this familiarity is manipulated alongside the film, which provides nuance to his beautiful composition. He manages to compose every emotion you could ever attribute to Batman. Despite the narrative itself doing an extraordinary job at it, Giacchino's score is one of the most prominent reflectors of the protagonist's mental state.
A round of applause should also be given to the fact that it doesn't half-ass its sequences, and rather than only hinting on what they would suggest it wholly tells the story within them. The film's final minute is a beautiful example of that. It greatly sacrifices the need to fit into traditional narrative styles and chooses to zoom into the specifics of its sequences, and yet never feels slow. It's such a gripping thriller that the three hours pass by like a bullet. Yet it's so exceptionally focused on the protagonist's mental state that none of the twists and realizations feel sudden or out of place. Contrary to even most of this film's appreciators, I believe its third act is exactly where the excellence lies.
Matt Reeves has crafted the most vulnerable and the most relatable version of the character despite him also being the smartest live-action adaptation of the world's greatest detective altogether. It's a tale that emphasizes the hero's mistakes to subtly guide the viewer's observation of his journey to redemption. The protagonist, albeit always pessimistic, is introduced as so extraordinary at his job that the police (with a fair share of naysayers) let him casually walk around crime scenes and all the wrongdoers fear the sight of blank shadows. The more the story progresses, the more mistaken and sloppier he becomes. A slow, ambiguous transformation is always hinted at while Batman contacts his inner demons more and more as the story progresses. The magic of The Batman's narrative is how the way he chooses to see his effect influences his present-time effect. No matter how black and white he may choose for his overview to be, he subconsciously knows how variable a term like 'effect' can be, which is something the film remarkably manages to convey despite not spoonfeeding. It masters the noir-speak to the extent of exploring its protagonist's introverted psyche to almost the fullest. Unlike some of the other good/great Batman films that explore ideas explicitly, The Batman reduces it all to an ambiguous term like 'effect', about which more is seen than heard. The 'becoming' of Batman progresses almost entirely through the most specific dynamics and happenings, with very little opportunity for language to summarise it. That, I believe, is the beauty of storytelling.
But above most things, The Batman is a story of companionship and love or at least dynamics that can vaguely be summarised as such. For an individual so radically inclined towards a self-assigned duty, even a person asking them how they're doing can be quite soothing. It never prescriptively imposes either on the characters. What adds to its greatness is how these little tweaks within the protagonist's life slowly contribute to his becoming, and how this slow progression to his own becoming inspires his allies like James Gordon and Selina Kyle. One can't even tell where the cycle begins. One of the things that I really admire about films of Wong Kar-Wai and Leos Carax is how the two manage to convey authentic feelings and relationships that one can't quite categorize within basic language, and while The Batman doesn't do it to such a degree, it still pulls it off to a degree admirable enough for a superhero noir flick.
What associates The Batman with greatness is how its blurred lines that influence all the change are hard to categorize, but can definitely be felt at high levels. It's a sign of a good film to leave you thinking for a while. But The Batman doesn't leave you thinking about explicit messages, what instead lingers, is the beauty of all the dynamics and standpoints that one can't quite categorize, the feelings and transformations that a noir piece of art can excel at, which The Batman breathtakingly does so. In an age where cinema halls have been full of superhero flicks that are more product than art (albeit often good products), The Batman is a raw, artistic, and uncompromisingly authentic film that's driven by its creators to the fullest.
Rating: 20 out of 21 TUREs
Comments
Post a Comment