The Dark Knight is a horror movie. Slasher films or films with invading radioactive aliens carrying lasers of mass destruction are more likely to make people yawn or laugh, rather than scream. A true horror unpicks your sense of security. Dark Knight was profoundly disturbing because it is possible. There are no super-powers or supernatural forces - there are just average people and their capacity for evil. Gotham city is our world, our values in close-up. The movie forced us to face the real, underlying evil in each of us.
Some men aren't looking for anything logical~ Alfred, The Dark Knight
They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with.
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
An excellent review on the excellent movie floated up some ethical issues I've been chewing over. The Joker doesn't subscribe to anybody's rules. He advances in his schemes by letting people choose: to break the rules that underpins society and benefit, or to hold fast to the rules and absorb the consequences? As people choose to break the rules, they participate in destruction and help The Joker win the game of exposing the society's rules as a farce.
The citizens of Gotham city let him down in the ferrie incident by making the nobler but riskier choice. But that was a squirt of Hollywood-flavored syrup! (I think the makers lost the nerve to quench the smoldering hope in the human spirit.)
Even its true, unsung hero barely emerges virtuous. When tested, the Batman almost-but-not-quite breaks his only rule not to kill. He only just subdued his murderous intent and engaged in a desperately unethical, Orwellian strategy to overcome evil. Gotham city's hero tottered on the edge of integrity, like Harvey and many of the citizens.
What do you do when your enemy doesn't play by the rules? Do you get to break your rules to overcome evil for the greater good? What's the point of keeping the rules when others don't and sell you out?
I wonder what the Joker would say if he went head-to-head with Jesus. No Comprehende? He'd feel a bit let down, I think.
Jesus, the mighty hero, makes the nobler choice, refuses to break God's rules and absorbs the consequences himself. Jesus emerges completely virtuous and victorious over his enemy! He overcomes his enemy, sin, by dying on the cross and comes out clean in his resurrection. What's more, he does this for the benefit of everyone else.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
~ John 1:9-13
Our world is less noble and more stuffed up than Gotham City. But we have a hero greater than Batman. If it wasn't for Jesus, wouldn't we just despair and wail for our society?
Brilliant film. Mighty Savior!
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