If there was ever the need for me to show some people the philosophical ideals of Joseph de Maistre put in action, there is, to date, no better way to do so than to show them the movie, The Dark Knight.
Joseph de Maistre said that society is on the verge of disorder, and to keep it safe from itself and its internal, despotic tendencies, society needs someone to do its dirty work for itself – an executioner who is at once praised for the work done to keep society stable, but also despised by the public for what he does. There is a somewhat twisted messianic element one can place upon him: he takes the sins of the people, all the evil they need done, and does it for them to save them. He joins in the chaos, but he never is capable of overcoming it. And that, we get to see, is who and what the Batman is for Gotham. He gives it order, but he is hated for it, and indeed, by the end he knows he must be hated for it if he is to accomplish what he has set out to do: to save people from themselves.
In this way, if Batman is the ultimate agent of human-established order, a kind of humanistic messiah who must transcend the limits of morality for its sake, then the Joker is his devil, the humanistic agent of chaos, who wants to overcome all of society’s constructs in order to show each and every person who they are and what they are capable of becoming. The reason why the Joker can never kill the Batman, and the reason why the Batman can never kill the Joker is because they are of the same coin. Two-Face can only come out of them. If one of them would fall, so would the other. Batman can’t take on chaos and refashion it; he can only control it and use it. Chaos, to be understood and appreciated, must be seen from the vantage of the law it rejects, and that is its one downfall.
The war between the Batman and the Joker is the war over the human soul, the war we face daily in ourselves and in society. And in the movie, it is also the war for the soul of Harvey Dent, the White Knight District Attorney who Batman believes will be able to take his place in society and make the need for the Batman disappear. He believes in Harvey Dent. But so does the Joker. Who is the victor? Who gains the last laugh? That, perhaps, is a matter for debate.
The movie continues the excellence started with Batman Begins. However, it is far from a perfect film, or a perfect production of Batman. Batman’s outfit this time around just did not work for me. It felt a bit more comic than dark, which is sad considering the rest of the dark tone the movie had going for it. The Joker, so well played by Heath Ledger, nonetheless just misses some of the jovial nature of the Joker; his portrayal is nearly spot-on, but that’s it, nearly. He just isn’t as comic about himself as he should be. He doesn’t even have his joy-buzzer. He’s too introspective. He doesn’t get to the real joy of the Joker – instead, he continues on with a nihilistic self-hate which the Joker should not have. Perhaps in the third film he would have been able to develop, if Heath did not die as he did. Perhaps if he found the one true love of his life – Harley Quinn – he would have become all that the Joker should have been.
4/5 stars.
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