Sunday, June 26, 2005
Batman Begins
As a lifelong comic and Batman fan, I and my daughter went to see the new Batman film. It was an extremely dark film that spent much time exploring Bruce Wayne's extremely traumatised psyche, this turned out to be more complex than met the eye
- Bruce falling down the well
- Bruce than becoming subject to swarming bats who fly out of the well
- Bruce becoming frightened while watching an opera that evoked the bats; his consequent fear led to the family's premature exit from the theatre.
- Bruce seeing his parents as a consequence.
Yep, we go into the realms of Freudian psychology and we witness Bruce's battered ego getting even more battered (no pun intended) by the visual continuing battle between his id (Henri Ducard, League of Shadows) and superego(Alfred the Butler and Gordon, the honest police officer). This was clever and well informed stuff.
At the centre of this, we have Christopher Bale who plays Bruce and Batman; and what an actor!. He is no stranger to parental separation in film roles, he played a very powerful Jim in Spielberg's Empire of the Sun; and you can't help feeling that the young Bruce Wayne character is modelled Bale's Jim. Very powerful performances all around.
As for Batman, well I felt as if the film grabbed me by the throat. It had Dark Knight written all over it, the classic scene of him surveying Gotham City from a tall building in the rain. I went back to my childhood and really started to believe in this superhero and actuall got that rather childhood pleasure at seeing the baddies getting battered around a bit. This Batman, however, had a lot to learn, he crashed in to buildings and fell to the ground and returned home with huge bruises to his body. Oh yes, this film really fizzed to the huge barrel of gunpowder at the end.
My daughter thought the film was brilliant and insisted that we see the film again as well buy the DVD.
Brilliant stuff, much better than Van Helsing (and that had to take some beating!)
- Bruce falling down the well
- Bruce than becoming subject to swarming bats who fly out of the well
- Bruce becoming frightened while watching an opera that evoked the bats; his consequent fear led to the family's premature exit from the theatre.
- Bruce seeing his parents as a consequence.
Yep, we go into the realms of Freudian psychology and we witness Bruce's battered ego getting even more battered (no pun intended) by the visual continuing battle between his id (Henri Ducard, League of Shadows) and superego(Alfred the Butler and Gordon, the honest police officer). This was clever and well informed stuff.
At the centre of this, we have Christopher Bale who plays Bruce and Batman; and what an actor!. He is no stranger to parental separation in film roles, he played a very powerful Jim in Spielberg's Empire of the Sun; and you can't help feeling that the young Bruce Wayne character is modelled Bale's Jim. Very powerful performances all around.
As for Batman, well I felt as if the film grabbed me by the throat. It had Dark Knight written all over it, the classic scene of him surveying Gotham City from a tall building in the rain. I went back to my childhood and really started to believe in this superhero and actuall got that rather childhood pleasure at seeing the baddies getting battered around a bit. This Batman, however, had a lot to learn, he crashed in to buildings and fell to the ground and returned home with huge bruises to his body. Oh yes, this film really fizzed to the huge barrel of gunpowder at the end.
My daughter thought the film was brilliant and insisted that we see the film again as well buy the DVD.
Brilliant stuff, much better than Van Helsing (and that had to take some beating!)
