An orphan story, sad and gloomy like a Dickens novel, chronicle of a fatherless but also motherless society that leaves two boys (and one girl) alone with decisions that overwhelm them. And for which they are just too young. The generation of lost boys.
It starts with the Ave Maria, the camera looks at an upper-class apartment block in fictional Gotham City, the Ave Maria emanates from one of the rooms, and through a window you can see, not quite clearly, how one man hits another. Then he tapes his head with plastic tape and writes “No more lies” on it. A merciless ritual.
This killer is the spooky Riddler who has terrified all of Gotham City, he just killed the mayor. The Ave Maria is his song. Batman, who is actually the billionaire’s son Bruce Wayne, lives in a run-down palace and becomes his antagonist, also has a song. It’s “Something in the Way” by nirvana.
He does a lot of the dirty work at the start of this great and depressing take on Batman, cleaning up the crusty skull-headed dudes that roam the dark city streets – the minimalist among vigilantes. The Riddler, on the other hand, to whom he is linked in an almost fraternal way, takes on the real criminals, the rich and powerful, who run their politics and philanthropy and who, in corruption, are closely linked to organized crime. He wants to clean up Gotham City, which is a cesspool. A serial killer with a program that makes the Riddler a kind of terrorist.
“The Batman” is the name of the film and the article indicates that this is not a name, more a classification, a species. The man himself introduces himself differently: “I am vengeance”, he explains, I am revenge, then he hits, hard and powerful. When the woman he loves, Selina Kyle, Catwoman (the feisty Zoë Kravitz) says his name, the Vengeance sounds almost tender.
Batman is the most reimagined superhero over the years
Batman is the most troubled career of all American superheroes, a lonely, existential, tormented figure most modified, adapted, reimagined over the decades. He was impersonated by Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck. He was supposed to play again in this version and has already co-written a screenplay, but they couldn’t agree on the intended line and Affleck left the project. Matt Reeves, who was successful with the end-times chamber drama “Cloverfield” and the recent “Planet of the Apes” films, wrote his own version, inspired in particular by the very dark “Year One” by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, with Robert Pattinson as Batman in mind.
Pattinson hadn’t felt at all comfortable as a teen star on the hit “Twilight” series and preferred to work with independent filmmakers afterwards. Reeves had seen him in “Good Time,” the Safdie brothers’ independent hit, and felt an inner rage that his Batman also needed. Even my agents, Pattinson says when they heard about the blockbuster Batman, were like, “Oh, interesting, we thought you just wanted to play freaks anymore?” Pattinson’s response: “He’s a freak.”
You don’t see fantastic superhero action here, but a black detective story with a profound off-narrative, as you know it from Chandler & Co. The Riddler then adds his intricate riddles, through which he communicates with the police and especially with the Batman: “What is this… it can be cruel, poetic, blind, and if denied, you might be met with defiance ?”
Is justice the answer? Gotham is dark, rainy, dirty, horny white men in the nightclubs, corrupt politicians, mostly in election campaigns, dubious drug lords. Pure noir. Batman investigates alongside the upstanding Lieutenant Gordon of the GCDP, played by Jeffrey Wright. That means he’s mostly in gear, with a mask and cape. Good cop, bat cop.
When Bruce takes that off at home, you’re shocked at how frail the lad is, how junkie-like fragile, his back all scarred. Black strands fall over his face, he has the tired elegance of Travis Bickle, the “Taxi Driver”. As a child he saw his parents murdered, but the Riddler plagues him with another traumatic insecurity – was father Wayne, who also wanted to go into politics, really a philanthropic billionaire? The sins of fathers, the complicity of money & politics & crime, a grievous American issue.
Matt Reeves modeled the Riddler on the Zodiac Killer, the notorious serial killer from the late 1960s, for the young Batman – he is only his second year active in the Avengers costume – the model was Kurt Cobain. Two orphans… but in the end the Riddler – that’s an oppressive performance by Paul Dano – makes the difference, the social difference between them clear.
It can’t be that bad, he says, growing up without parents in a rich household. In an orphanage, on the other hand… Young Bruce’s self-righteousness is severely shaken. A mighty tide spills onto the streets of Gotham City the way Travis Bickle had longed for it, as the city’s underprivileged open fire on the rich from the rooftops. One notices the four years in which this story unfolded in America.
TheBatman, 2022 – Directed by Matt Reeves. Book: Matt Reeves, Peter Craig. Camera: Greig Fraser. Editing: William Hoy, Tyler Nelson. Music: Michael Giacchino. Starring: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Barry Keoghan, Amber Sienna, Colin Farrell, Peter Saarsgard, John Turturro, Andy Serkis, Jeffrey Wright. Warner, 175 minutes.