The Cape of Fear: The Death and life of Batman

A catastrophic setback prevailed for almost all superhero movies when I was a kid during late 80’s and 90’s, because every moviemaker hankered after a full-throttle action flick infected with nudity and metaphoric suspense. Futile and pathetic endeavours to make them technically superior and visually appealing to draw viewers while most of them lacked a good script. This deprived all of them of their soul. I was amazed when I first read the reviews of Spiderman by Sam Raimi casting the Man boy Toby Maguire, but never dared to go, because of only one reason; I never wanted to spoil my childhood memoire of Marvel/DC comics, the soul in it to be exact. By that time I had already seen the Batman, an animated series by WB on TV (DD Metro, India, Sunday 10 am show). A little different and darker take on things that Lee built and I used to like it a lot.

After a long and tiring break, I was at the first of its kind superhero movie preview, Batman Begins by Christopher Nolan. I had seen Nolan’s work by that time in few of his offbeat but chart-buster movies. One of them was Insomnia, my favourite. As I went through the experience of Batman Begins till it ended recently on The Dark Knight Rises, I found the movie to be an intense spiritual and dramatic depiction of a character than ever. No innate or acquired super-powers, no genetically deformed criminals, no ‘special-chemical-went-wrong-and-scientist-turned-into-monster’ kind of criminal, no typical love making scenes of the knight and his love-interests and inspector Gordon is not a goof-up, Alfred is a realistic character resembling Batman’s conscience, Bruce is not a scientist and Luscious Fox was provided with the responsibility of being a super-polished science geek. It was as it should be, close to reality. Loved by us, craved by and feared by us because we in one or the other character found our presence, our fears and saw how our own morals can get twisted in the movie. The citizens, Alfred, Luscious, Commissioner Gordon, Rachel, or the drop-dead frightened Gordon’s wife, cowardly police commissioner Foley; they are but us in some way or the other walk of life. None of them tried portraying any super-heroic act, and even the Batman, afraid, rolled back in a shell at times.

The franchise has a complete profile of a man beautifully developed by Stan Lee and Christopher Nolan. The man who was born in riches, orphaned by a mere street thug, had his guilt misplaced that caused damages to his friendship and eventually lost his childhood-love. He chose to become one of them whom he once feared. In a grim, depreciating toil of becoming a fear to the thugs and white-collar criminals, he became a fear to himself. He couldn’t help but choose the path of oblivion and deprivation every time the choices had been laid out to him. Isn’t that what we see around us. The Good vs. Evil and the sacred warriors around us, the daring dozens, they are all were thrown into the abyss of oblivion and anonymity for their good deeds to reform the society; toy soldiers, decorating the history of society.

The superhero is an altered ego of a normal human being, who can defeat the powerful and vengeful that the normal person dares not to look straight in the eye. The ego went really berserk during the second instalment of the Nolan-WB Batman franchise. The mind is boggled and tortured when we see our own evils questioning us about our own advices against the vices. The most psyched part is where all the laws of society are at stake and being questioned from some simple and unique point-of-view. We didn’t have answers till the time Batman arrived with a logical solution, and that was to become like him, avenge the evil, but not the man behind it, correct the society, instead of destroying it. That’s how he is different from the league of shadows. But that was mere a partial remedy and a bubble in the cause of justice.

The kid who was not a man till he learned to live with his fear and master his own mind to control it. The Caped crusader is a master of fear & dread; he is called Batman. The entire concept designed by Stan Lee 40 years back is to show the world that one can master their own fear and tame the evil not only foreign but one that is living inside them as well. It is not an outlandish idea, but an old wine in a new bottle. As Nolan’s series advances with time, it had become more complex looking, but actually a clearer message came out, how a man from the riches cared not a wee bit and drags his life out of everything he has to live in oblivion and fight for justice. Why oblivion, so that the message of anonymity is clearer to the public. Seeking justice is not a fame game. Why the mask, because justice doesn’t have a face, its faceless. Practically it can’t have one for that will endanger the face-bearer’s loved ones. The beginning in 2008 is just a prologue where the man finds his place in the society. His life’s cause was found by vanquishing his own evil of vendetta he was nurturing for the criminals since his parent’s death. For he learned that taking lives is terminal and there’s no coming back. He learnt the ways of a Judge as opposed to an executioner. But the knight’s stance was budged and image almost destroyed when a psychopath plundered the city with his horrifying plans and questions even the Batman’s capabilities and tricks him with some false choices of life and death. The entire plot thickens when it showed what the knight could do. Batman took a fall for what he didn’t do and sacrificed his image for the sake of justice as he believed, people need a name, a face to build their trust on and hold on to at the time of a sinister plague looming large on the city’s horizon. Harvey has a face that Batman can never have. However, this was also not entirely true.

After such a larger than life performances, the concluding part of this saga ends with a lot of criticism around the world; the critiques were vocal about the pace of the movie, action sequences and the prolonged entangled play of suspense. But one must understand the bigger picture; it’s not a standalone movie alone. The ending showed us what the Caped crusader was not capable of and that he is but human; a common man tortured by a dreadful past, reclusive from public appearances, disabled by dried cartilage in one knee, a weakling. The riches taken away from him, strength gone, cape was thrown away, the enemy who is stronger than him took the ‘face’ away from him Batman is now thrown back to his own prison of memories. The kid who lost his parents 30 years back was tested against all the rugs & walls of a dungeon and faced the same old dread that was lurking beneath the ocean of his haunting nightmares. The movie is not all about vengeance and swanky action sequences, its solely about what and who Bruce Wayne is and at the length, he himself along with the viewers found out that its not Mr. Wayne who is Batman, but Batman is sometimes Mr. Bruce Wayne, owner of Wayne enterprises. Down the line after years of fighting injustice and building his own fearful face for the foes, his image on other side of the mirror is effaced, the orphaned kid from Gotham’s riches lost his face; he is Faceless, he is The Justice. Protectors of Gotham seen the caped master of fear growing larger, taking over the enemies and their psyche curved along the fate of the city again, they all rise again to take over their city again. Batman is declared MIA, a statue built in his memory to honour his sacrifice and Bat-cave inherited by Robin (?).

Bruce Wayne is dead.