Desi Train

We walked out of a 150 minute spectacle called The Dark Knight last weekend. Biwi looked at me as we walked to the car and asked “So how was it?”…

To me that question is as simple as simple can be. Watch a movie. Come out. It’s a yes or a no. But then there are some. Some like The Dark Knight. I was still reeling under the weight of the movie. It is heavy. And I’ve been spoilt rotten. By the trash from Bollywood where I do not have to concentrate for more than 15 minutes in a movie.

And a 150 minutes is 10 times the stress. The stress to remain focussed for such a loooong time.

To begin with, The Dark Knight could well be a well made Bollywood thriller. Except Bollywood could not work on that little gap that exists between the good… the bad… and the pure ugly.

A lot has been written about the movie by every critic, reviewer, blogger and perhaps that is one reason why I’ve been putting off writing my reaction. Its been the same for most of the movies that I watch. Everyone is writing their reviews and reactions and most of what I need to stay ends up being covered in one, five or ten articles about the movie.

Yet, I write about The Dark Knight.

First things first. If you haven’t seen it. Hey give yourself some time and go watch it. If you haven’t, then read the rest after watching it for there are spoilers ahead.

The visuals by Nolan are excellent. Some may leave their footprints. For me the ones that left their impression are ofcourse the first sight of Two Face, the Joke leaning out of the police car window as the car blazes through the streets of Gotham, Batman on his pod!…

Ones that didn’t get down my throat : The climax where the two groups of people in those two boats - that scene in a Bollywood movie would have been trashed like hell… and I thought the execution in The Dark Knight could have been better. Somehow the way Batman decides to take the blame of the cop murders on himself to protect Harvey Dent… it looked done in a haste… time’s up finish it off quickly… well finish they did.

Questions remained unanswered from a typical Bollywood critic perspective and I’m surprised no one has raised them.

If it was this easy for the Joker to control the city - from Zero to being able to do anything he wanted, where was he all this time? And why didn’t anyone else think about doing what the Joker did… ofcourse this is based on a comic book… so one let this go.

So the question is: All these and more illogical things that happened in The Dark Knight, we get those in every second Bollywood movie? Yet The Dark Knight is projected as the best thing that happened to cinema, while we keep trashing Bollywood regular crap.

And that leaves me in a quandry. Why did I still digest Dark Knight, but couldn’t any of the Bollywood fare? Frankly I have no answer.

Shibani Bhatija had once mentioned to me, that you have to “submit to a movie” first. So why did one submit to The Dark Knight so easily and not to Bollywood films?

Coming back to the performances. I did not think Heath Ledger would be able to stand up to Nicholson’s Joker of the ‘89 Batman. But he did. Giving his own personalized version of the Joker, who makes you sweat in fear… this was an amazing lifetime of a performance, and lets pray for his soul.

Christian Bale as Batman/Bruce Wayne of course is sinking deeper and deeper into the character. While Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent gives the character the rivet your eyes to the screen.

Nolan has proved why he is a Nolan. Upgrading for indie movies to big blockbusters, Batman Begins made me realize that he was not just any indie filmmaker. With The Dark Knight he moves a couple of notches above. With his burning feet over coals and ice filmmaking now combined with glamour millions… he maintains the kind of balance, not many are comfortable in.

For once even if the filmmaker did not intend, I’m questioning a lot of things, some stated above. And the credit to that goes to Nolan completely.

Tags: Nolan, The Dark Knight

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 9:30 pm and is filed under Movie Reactions.
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