Hilangnya dunia Batman
WATAK Batman memang cukup dikenali. Ia muncul dalam banyak medium, komik, siri televisyen dan juga filem. Saya antara salah seorang yang membesar dengan komik-komik Batman. Sifat adiwira Batman yang hebat dan imej kelam memberikan karakteristik penting dalam penghayatan khalayak terhadap Batman. Manusia kelawar yang boleh terbang bukan dengan kesaktian tetapi teknik dan sains memerlukan malam untuk melengkapkan wataknya.
Malam, kelam dan suram adalah karakter filem Batman (1989) arahan Tim Burton. Batman menjadi filem pertama yang diadaptasi daripada cerita komik oleh Bill Finger yang diilustrasikan oleh Bob Kane yang menemui khalayak pembaca pada 1939. Filem ini sangat diingati kerana mengekalkan karakter dan premis penting yang menghidupkan cerita ini, sebuah bandar raya ilusi bernama Gotham City. Dalam Gotham City ada sistem sosial tersendiri dan wujud watak hitam dan putih yang memberikan nafas dramatik kepada Batman. Gotham City hanya wujud dalam Batman.
Batman di tangan Tim Burton mirip genre noir yang muncul di Amerika Syarikat pada dekad 40-an dan 50-an. Sesetengah pengkaji filem melabelkan Batman sebagai neo-noir atau noir baru kerana membawa elemen-elemen noir terutama pada karakteristik dalam filem ini sekalipun keseluruhannya tidak menjuruskan definisi noir. Batman tidak terlepas terus daripada noir yang kaya dengan kritikan sosial dan ekspresi sinematik di sebuah premis yang penuh dengan “kegelapan”. Gelap di sini lebih sebagai metafora kecelaruan sosial.
Pembinaan set Gotham City dalam Studio Finewood dan menghidupkan suasana malam yang suram, jalan-jalan yang basah dengan refleksi lampu neon memberikan satu ekspresi sinematik yang impresif kepada Batman. Tim Burton memindahkan kesan rasa daripada pengalaman membaca komik ke layar perak dengan baik. Peluang Tim Burton bermain dengan cahaya dan bayang untuk memberikan gambaran satu bandar raya yang bermain di ilusi Bob Kane 79 tahun lalu.
Lalu apa yang berlaku sekiranya Batman dikeluarkan daripada lingkaran ekspresi noir menjadi sebuah filem jenayah yang biasa? Inilah yang berlaku pada The Dark Knight sequel daripada filem Batman Return. Pengarah Christopher Nolan dan penulis lakon layar Jonathan Nolan dan Christopher Nolan mencipta premis baru kepada Batman. Gotham City telah hilang kesan kegelapan malamnya. The Dark Knight telah hilang keaslian Batman dan keunikan yang terbina sekian lama dalam komik Batman. Ini boleh dianggap satu eksperimen Christopher Nolan untuk memberikan tafsiran baru kepada komik yang bertaraf cult kepada peminat-peminat.
Sekali pun menggunakan judul yang tidak menyebut Batman tetapi The Dark Knight dibina daripada kerangka Batman. Karakteristik Batman dan premis menjadi penting kerana Batman diingati dengan dunia malamnya. Maka apabila The Dark Knight menghilangkan dunia malam Batman dan Gotham City tidak ada lagi keunikannya malah membawa Batman merayau hingga Hong Kong, The Dark Knight menjadi filem Batman yang buruk setakat ini. Filem ini terkeluar daripada ikatan Batman dengan pemuja-pemujanya dan The Dark Knight sebuah eksperimen yang tidak berjaya. Malah filem ini menjadi retorik apabila terpengaruh dengan persepsi Barat khususnya AS dengan kewujudan teroris pada abad baru ini. Watak Joker (lakonan Heath Ledger) yang menjadi pasangan Batman digambarkan seperti teroris kerana idealisme Joker dalam The Dark Knight bukan penjenayah yang materialistik. Adegan Joker membakar satu kontena wang kertas memperlihatkan watak ini sengaja memaksa penonton melihat daripada sisi teroris.
Permainan sinematik yang ditunjukkan oleh Christopher Nolan dan Tim Burton ternyata sangat berbeza. Tim Burton memilih menjadikan Batman sebuah filem yang puitisnya dirasakan menerusi permainan cahaya dan bayang serta sudut kamera yang merakamkan karakter Gotham City. Tetapi di tangan Christopher Nolan, kesan puitis itu telah hilang dan seperti cuba untuk menzahirkan Batman dalam milieu sosial semasa di sebuah kota raya di AS. Malah The Dark Knight tidak pula menjadi filem gengster. Tetapi yang jelas filem ini cuba melampaui dunia kelam Bob Kane kepada kecerahan realiti masa kini.
Pelakon yang diberi kepercayaan dan peluang melakonkan watak Batman selalu menjadi perhatian. Dalam filem yang diarahkan oleh Tim Burton, Michael Keaton menjadi pelakon pertama melakonkan Batman di filem. Perwatakan yang dibentuk oleh Bill Finger dulu, Bruce Wayne @ Batman seorang billionaire muda dan suka memikat wanita. Michael Keaton memberikan lakonan yang mengagumkan. Dalam The Dark Knight, Christine Bale melakonkan watak Batman. Tetapi agak malang apabila Christine Bale tenggelam di sebalik karisma Heath Ledger yang membawakan watak Joker dengan hebat sekali. Joker menguasai hampir keseluruhan filem ini dan meninggalkan Batman jauh di belakang.
Semua ini kerana pencapaian mengisi watak yang diberikan kepada Heath Ledger. Joker di tangan pelakon ini bukan saja seorang penjenayah malah pembunuh psychopathy yang mengingatkan kita kepada lakonan Anthony Hopkins dalam The Silence of the Lamb lebih sepuluh tahun lalu. Gerak dan ekspresi Heath Ledger bagai besi berani kepada penonton, apa lagi kesan humor yang dipersembahkan dengan jayanya. Joker di tangan Heath Ledger memang “pelawak” yang sadis, sesekali memerah ketawa dan sesekali pula menyentap jiwa apabila pelawak ini membunuh tanpa rasa.
Dalam The Dark Knight, Christine Bale bukanlah pasangan yang sesuai dengan Heath Ledger. Ketidakseimbangan persembahan lakon ini membuatkan filem ini sedikit tempang apabila Joker lebih menguasai penonton, tetapi Batman menjadi perlahan dan tenggelam. Watak wanita semacam tidak bermaya, ketiadaan watak Catwoman lakonan Michelle Pfeiffer dalam Batman Return. Kemunculan Maggie Gyllenhaal membawa watak Rachel Dawes, teman wanita Batman tidak cukup kuat untuk menyumbang kepada filem ini.
Biar pun majoriti pengkritik di AS memberikan rating yang menarik kepada The Dark Knight termasuk Roger Ebert tetapi ternyata filem ini belum menyaingi Batman Return atau Batman. Percubaan untuk keluar sepenuhnya daripada lingkungan pengaruh komik menghilangkan metafora kelam dan malam yang banyak menyumbangkan kepada cerita asalnya. Walau apa pun, penonton tetap terpesona dengan Joker terutama dialognya semasa mahu membunuh mangsa, “Why so serious?".
Well..as U can see here, this article above is one of the most stupid thing I've ever seen. Why I say stupid? Because the author is actually cannot think beyond his belief and cannot accept all the drastic changes that was shown in the movie and yet he doesn't even get the message that the movie's trying to convey to us because he's too busy antagonizing it..What a shame. I don't think he should write that as a newspaper article because it's totally his opinion and if U want to give any opinion but U get the wrong idea about what you're trying to say, then U better think again, as a reporter, U shouldn't be way too bias like that because being an opposition while others are supporting that movie, it is just like a chicken crossing a busy road and U might get hit by the busy traffic. And now U are crossing it and that will be ME knocking U down..
"Why so serious?" This was the Joker's famous quote and now I ask the author this question before I go on. U see, before this I hold myself from writing a review about this movie because there are too many people sharing the same idea with me which I don't see any reason anymore to write my own opinion about it because many people had already hit the jackpot. But after reading that stupid article above, now here I stand to give the movie some backup. As for me, for all I can see in the article that almost 98% of what the author wrote is incorrect. The author has been stuck to his shallow belief that Batman should be living in dark and gloomy city where all the villains are materialistic and no drama at all.. Well, those idea are actually suitable for cartoon series and only little kids can enjoy that because a story with total non-stop action is something very lame to watch. We will be only watching it and not thinking about it.
The Dark Knight had shown a characteristic or criteria as a great movie and it brought us way beyond the life of the Batman, Bruce Wayne and the people of Gotham. Their dilemmas and feelings are beautifully portrayed and almost everything that happened in Gotham were explained. We can hear the peoples' voices, sufferings and hatred that lies beneath everyone. This is the first action from comic book movie that I feel like I want to cry because it really touches deep inside our heart. Every person have their own feeling and Batman is not a robot. What Chris Nolan try to convey his message is for us to accept that Batman comes from among us peoples and as a human(not an alien from another planet), he eats, cries, falls in love, and do things like other people do. But his conscious and awareness of crimes and mischiefs that occurs in Gotham makes him stand up to fight them back in his own unique way. And the reason why he wouldn't do it legally as in joining the police force is because he want to avenge the villains for what had happened to his family when he was a kid before. He stood up for justice because he knew that the authority has been unfair and corrupted as nobody had shown responsibility to give justice to him and punish his parents' killers. He became a vigilante after he put himself back together and then became more organized with some cooperation from the uncorrupted police force(which is not totally uncorrupted).
In this movie, we can also see that even the villains also have dilemmas and as for the Joker, his appearance is like one of the ingredients in the cooking that make it tastes delicious. Joker is a total psycho who enjoys doing bad things and he is not materialistic. The author said that Chris Nolan is trying to make Joker's character same as terrorist from the idea of Americans. Well, if U think carefully, Joker's character is really well built and he is in fact a terrorist who finds pleasure in doing his business. He just likes doing it and money is not a big thing at all. He only wants to find someone who can be his match and play tag together. 
He knows that Batman's position is very tough while he has nothing to lose but the only difference is that he has no rules and Batman is sticking to one. In order to get Batman to play along with him, he targets the backbones of Gotham such as the judge, the commissioner and Harvey Dent. Batman won't really give a damn to the other two but when it comes to Harvey, he will give his full strike because he realized that Harvey could be a face who will give a promising justice to Gotham because of his commitment in fighting against crime and mob. However, unlike Harvey, Batman has no jurisdiction because he's not abiding to the law since he's a crime fighting vigilante and this makes Batman very special. The author's review on this shows how stupid he is for he couldn't accept it. He didn't see it the way it is supposed to in which Batman leaves town to China in order to get Lau who is an accountant who manages the Gotham's mobs' money and also a fiend himself. Joker already noticed about this since the exposition of the movie and he was aware that Batman is capable on anything.
Another thing is, to compare the credibility of the characters of Joker and Batman as imbalance is not fair because in the story, Joker appears as one nasty villain who came along with terror and opposed all people in Gotham including the mobs. He just made use of the mobs to bring chaos into the society and upon his appearance, he got Batman's attention while Harvey Dent and Jimmy Gordon still working hard to bring down the mobs. But his interference with the investigation was too much and his intention to get to Batman so hard made him targeting the commissioner, the judge and Harvey finally brought him to meet Batman at Bruce's party. However, when he suddenly realized Batman's weakness which is Rachel and by connecting Rachel to Harvey, he had found the key to bring down everything except the hearts of Gotham's citizens. Joker provoked Batman but at the same time revealing his own weakness which is his belief and that caused him to fall finally. He believed that everybody can be corrupted and can be evil in desperate times but not Batman and the citizens of Gotham because they have faith and loyalty. After Rachel's death, Harvey had lost his consideration and rationality and blamed others even though he was the one who had lost his faith after being manipulated by the Joker. Batman was the only one who stand uncorrupted and his sincere and honest intention represents the good citizens of Gotham who still need him no matter what and his superiority and intelligence make him learn from his mistakes while the darkness of his past and his secrets would make him grow stronger because he is Batman, the Dark Knight...
The so called "Love Bite"
