Joker
Ten second review: Well made, well written and thought provoking. While it doesn’t press every button and is at times a little blunt, Joker is certainly an engaging case study in the duality of villainy.
I love a film that you can’t ignore. Something that so quickly touches a societal nerve that a mere trailer is enough to generate international debate. It’s that type of film that serves to really teach us about our society. The film could never actually be released and it will have done enough to have peaked the interest of societal commentators. Before we unpack the film a little, and discuss some of its criticisms, it would be good to know what the film was about.
I will warn of spoilers from here on...
Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a clown for hire. I mean, if your good at something, never do it for free, right? But Arthur is not good at it. After being beaten up and fired Fleck snaps and continues to snap a few more times as further unfortunes unfold. After word gets out that a vigilante dressed as a clown is committing crimes in the name of revolution, a protest movement starts to form using his image as a rallying cry. Fleck doesn’t care, he’s out to settle his own debts, but the admiration feels like applause all the same.
To get the review bits out of the way; it’s beautifully shot, well paced, nicely plotted and Phoenix has taken a decent punt at the best actor. All that remains is to see if someone can cover it before the year is out. The references this film makes to source material like The Killing Joke and other darker toned Joker storylines, are wonderfully implemented. Wider reference to Scorsese films like Taxi Driver and King of Comedy also serve to highlight the filmmaking prowess at play and artistically embed this film in an existing aesthetic. Devoid of context and critical engagement, this film is truly worth watching. The question is whether the current cultural context serves to add or detract from this film’s content.
Very early on the cry went up, “this glorifies the school shooter mentality”, “this film is dangerous and shouldn’t be allowed”, “how could they turn comic book’s all time worst into a hero”. The film, if you actually watch it, answers this quite neatly. This character, as always, is out for himself. If people see something in him or his actions that should be lauded, it’s society that’s broken.
This film will be scary for some. Not scary like a horror film, but like a documentary. The secondary storyline of division, protest and wealth inequality is clearly allegorical for the current times. Out of touch elites with political power, unemployment and social services cuts really underline the truth at this story’s core. It’s when you look at the “other side” as human that you really start to scare yourself.
I imagine that if you felt taken in by Joker’s message then you might worry yourself. You could see his actions as heroic and revolutionary or the actions of a madman, but most dangerous is seeing the progression of his character and understanding it. Anyone who actually watches this film will see his actions as unjust. Whether they choose to engage in such clearly wrongful acts does not bare weight on the film but on the societal mirror they can see in it. The intrigue this film truly holds is in examining the psyche and situation behind the acts, the progression of events that leads to them and the humanising of the individual. Evil? Without question! Problematically though, a film like this makes you look at why.
I would suggest that a person that looks to decry this film from its premise will see what they want in it and continue to slate it after, but those who are criticising it for humanising a “bad guy” would seemingly be struggling most with the cold fact that they would rather not consider those of this mindset human at all. Rather like the film itself, actions don’t exist in a contextual vacuum. A person can do awful things for hateful reasons and we can leave the headline there, or we can address what drove them. The notion that the audience are meant to feel sympathetic towards this character is at best a misreading and at worst slanderous. At most you could suggest that you pity Fleck’s descent, but it must be understood that those are two different emotions.
Arthur Fleck does what he’s supposed to. He has a job, that he loses, he goes to therapy, to which the funding is cut and he takes his meds, which I imagine he can’t afford. That is a dangerously real story and if you’re scared about seeing the individual from the third act as human then the first two acts are hard to stomach. Joker is clearly the villain of this piece, the film makes no question of that and his actions aren’t in support of a protest or greater good but openly and unashamedly selfish, as he reiterates several times. However, looking at his journey, those who seek to label an individual like this as bad from birth or suggest they never could have been helped, might find them self in a problematic position. It might be easier to just give the film two stars, say Phoenix was great and hate on their perceived message of the film than take it, its characters or their real life counterparts seriously.
The film doesn’t succeed in all it attempts. It’s only a couple of hours long and unpacking all that goes along with this story would take ample time. Although it is a character study, it would be nice to have seen more about the world around him instead of the short inserts we did see. It also only touches on the clinical aspects a little and while not the tone or subject of the film, it would be nice to see this explored. The hope is that in extended materials for the film, like potential comic books about this universe, we will see these examined further.
There is however, a ray of hope that the film leaves us with. When the night is darkest the sun is sure to rise soon, and with the origin of Batman touched upon, the dark knight will surely be rising. I’d be happy without a sequel or series of these films, as a stand-alone I think it will be more powerful. There’s a lot to unpack here but it works as an interesting way of on-boarding in to a discussion about humanity’s scariest individuals.
