Quite recently, I had the pleasure of viewing one of the most engaging cinematic experiences in recent memory. ‘The Dark Knight’, for me, is an achievement of pure artistic excellence, the kind American cinema has rarely seen. Now I know that we live in an age where the urban Indian youth thinks that the ‘in’ thing to say is ‘I hate running-around-trees stuff, and prefer Hollywood flicks’. Fair enough, since I would be the first to admit (with a certain sense of lost sorrow) that 90% of Indian cinema is bullshit. But I also firmly believe that the same percentage of American cinema is also bullshit. I agree that a lot of them seem fun when viewed on the big screen, but then that really is the point of a cinema hall anyway. The truth is that most of what Hollywood churns out has no cinematic value, which is what makes ‘The Dark Knight’ special. It has everything that goes into a commercial, big-budget, studio-financed Hollywood movie - great visuals, jaw-dropping action sequences, sound editing, a pacy yet haunting background score, and of course, some brilliant performances. (Heath Ledger as The Joker is brilliant, and far more menacing than Jack Nicholson, who portrayed the same character in Tim Burton’s Batman. But to know what acting truly is, one has to watch Gary Oldman reprise his role as Lt. Jim Gordon.) I know now that 99% of the people who watched the movie liked it because of the reasons I mentioned above. Trust Me to be different, because I liked it for different reasons. In fact, if what I said earlier was all that there was to ‘The Dark Knight’, I know that I would have hated it…
The movie has some of the best onscreen dialogue ever. And the most brilliant lines were delivered in such an off-hand and matter-of-fact manner, that their meaning was lost on many. Like ‘The only morality in a cruel world is chance’, or simply ‘Everything burns’. And then, my personal favourite, ‘You know the thing about chaos. It’s fair.’ These are some of the cold, hard, truths of life. Unavoidable, unstoppable, inescapable, inevitable. Yet, this movie is filled with not just lines that tell us these cold truths, but also ones that give us strength and hope. Strength to understand these truths, and Hope that maybe, one day, we can combat them. And that is where what I really like about ‘The Dark Knight’ really begins to come to the fore…
The release of ‘The Dark Knight’ coincided with one of the most important phases in the history of Indian politics. If I had to describe it in the least number of words possible, I’d say - Nuclear Deal, Trust Vote, Cash-for-Votes and, apparently, ‘Singh is King’. The whole saga made me stop and seriously think about where my country and my people are heading. I have closely followed Indian politics for a few years now. In terms of ideology, my mind has leant towards the Congress on several occasions mainly because of the two terms frequently used in context with them - ‘Aam Aadmi’ and ‘Secularism’. At the same time, BJP’s ‘Hindutva’ stance has always pricked me like a thorn. Yet, I’ve been largely neutral towards these two giants of the Indian political scene, simply because in this day and age, you really can trust no one. Like most people, I too am worried about corruption eating away at our democracy, the way wood-borers hollow out our costly, red sandalwood furniture from the inside. Yet, in the years that I’ve actually followed and understood Indian politics, the Central Government has been headed, in succession, by two of the most trustworthy Indian politicians – Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. Vajpayee is a stalwart in the true sense of the word, and arguably the tallest leader in the country today. Manmohan Singh, amidst accusations of being remote-controlled, has always been a reluctant politician, more an economic reformer than anything else. And the one thing common between the two of them is their squeaky clean image. People may have believed that the decisions that mattered were being taken not at 7 Racecourse Road, but at 10 Janpath. But they forget that the nuclear deal has largely been Manmohan Singh’s brainchild. And time and again, Singh has put his foot down regarding the nature of his Cabinet, like demanding Shibu Soren’s resignation when he was named a suspect in a murder case. Furthermore, Manmohan Singh had refused to induct him into the Cabinet even when he was acquitted.
But I can’t help feeling now that things have truly changed. Manmohan Singh may have won the ‘Trust Vote’, but has lost the trust of a majority of his countrymen, because the very same Shibu Soren walked out from the PM’s office recently, claiming to have been assured of a Central Ministry, in exchange for his party’s votes in the trust vote. ‘Horse-trading’, it was called. And then there was the Cash-for-Votes drama in the Parliament of the ‘largest democracy in the world’. The scenes which were enacted on the floor of the House (and then splashed across the news channels much like the publicity campaign for Om Shanti Om) shocked me, intrigued me, and then saddened me. And I was barely beginning to come to terms with just how bad things are for us right now, when there were the blasts in Bangalore, and then Ahmedabad. As soon as I heard about the blasts in the Bangalore, my instant thought was ‘This has definitely been stage-managed to draw people’s attention away from the political situation in the country.’ My gut feeling grew stronger when I came to know the details of the blast. Low intensity blasts, meant to scare and not kill. I began to find my theory more convincing when there were similar blasts in Ahmedabad. The fact that Karnataka and Gujarat are both BJP-ruled states made me feel even more so. Two birds with one stone. “You say we are soft on terrorism? Look what is happening in states governed by you!” I cannot even begin to explain the grief I feel when I think of the people who were killed in these blasts.
It was with this feeling, that the state of affairs in our country is at a new low, that I walked into the cinema hall to watch ‘The Dark Knight’ a second time. I believe that the second viewing of a movie is generally the most important. This is because, while watching a movie for the first time, one does not really know details about how the movie is going to pan out. So one can’t appreciate the little things in the screenplay, which actually make sense only in retrospect, after one understands their place in the ‘big picture’. And from the third viewing onwards, a sense of fatigue can begin to set in, because now, one knows most of what is required to be known about the movie anyway. ‘The Dark Knight’ is one of those rare movies that seem even more special the second time round. The nuances of each performance become clearer. The depth in each spoken line feels exponentially deeper. And for those who don’t really care about lines and performances, the ‘jaw-dropping’ (as I described earlier) action sequences make your jaw drop even further. Most importantly, it made me feel even more, that there still is hope. I feel like going out there, because I know I can make a difference. And what I really want is for every single Indian, every single human being, to feel the same way. Because collectively, we can win. When, the soon-to-be-‘Two-Face’, Harvey Dent (played, again, brilliantly by Aaron Eckhart) said, “The night is darkest before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming”, I got a chill up my spine. When Lucius Fox’s (Morgan Freeman is great as ever) eyes showed that he trusted Batman, I knew that it was that kind of trust that one would need to engender, if one truly wanted people to believe in them. And then of course, when Alfred (Michael Caine is, yawn, great) tells Batman “But I did bloody tell you…”, I know that whatever has to be done, should be done with a smile. So, when I walked out from the cinema hall, awe-struck for the second time, I felt a little stronger, a little more hopeful, and a lot more aware of what I want to do. So then I’d just have to end by quoting who else but the Dark Knight, when I say ‘I’m whatever Gotham needs me to be…’
