The Dark Knight

I have been building up this movie for almost everyone I know, so it only makes sense to blog about it. I went to see the movie twice and the both times the tickets were sold out and the theater was full. This movie has everything one can ask for - action and social allusions. The movie is not preachy and there is something for everyone. Other than seeing Christian Bale in the suit, and Heath Ledger's amazing performance as the Joker I really loved the script and found it very thought provoking.

The writer and director Christopher Nolan using the example of the Gotham City showed the problems faced by the Western metropolises, in the post 9/11 era. He posed the question, what freedoms are we willing to surrender to protect the lives of millions? Also the Joker's use of Al-Qaeda like hostage videos made the urgency of terror and fear more real. At the reception held by Bruce Wayne, in honour of Harvey Dent, both Batman and Joker are shown emptying out their glasses, and not drinking booze, I thought that was an interesting parallelism between the two arch enemies.

Like its predecessors, other superhero movies, this one also raised the question of disguises and aliases. In the movie, mere mortals were seen copying the disguises of Batman and the Joker. But their disguises do not have the same effect of liberation and adulation as it did for their idols. The movie took the discussion of appearances and disguises a step further, and alluded to racial profiling. The innocent citizens were targetted by the police just because they looked like the Joker. This scene showed me that how often we are quick to judge minorities, especially Muslims, just because they share the same skin colour and similar names as the terrorists.

After watching the movie I am left with this one question. Would this movie, and the Iron Man, have had the same impression on me had it not been for the current state of terror and chaos of our world?