The latest installment of the Batman franchise has surpassed Spiderman 3 in opening weekend ticket sales and I'm glad to hear it. The Dark Knight is the only "superhero" movie I've ever seen that has kept me thinking for days afterwards and gave me hope that maybe popular entertainment can do the same for the public in general. After the initial awe of the sheer spectacle of explosions and violence had passed and my admiration for Heath Ledger's unbelievably visceral performance had settled down, I began to realize that The Dark Knight might be the first movie to truly capture the zeitgeist of the post-9/11 world we are living in.
Beyond being the typically overly-simplistic representations of good and evil found in comic book adaptations, the Joker and Batman are filled with confusion over their true purpose. At one point, the joker compares himself to a dog chasing a car and admits that he wouldn't even know what to do if he caught it. The Batman is equally confused about whether a hero is still a hero if those he saves no longer want him around. What Christopher Nolan ends up so masterfully proving in their confusion is that they need each other; their reason for being is totally dependent on the existence of the other. The movie's definition of good and evil becomes less black and white than it is yin and yang, with each opposing and yet also containing a bit of the other. If only George Bush had such a nuanced understanding of this dualism, perhaps he could wrap his head around why the world isn't so grateful for his ham-handed approach to forced freedom.
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