Joker(2019) - This will Strike the Deepest Chords in Your Hearts
Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson produced a super-villain named ''Joker'', which was first appeared in the comic book called Batman (April 25, 1940). DC Comics published Batman comic. The character was initially meant to be killed off in his second appearance. Thankfully, due to the reconsideration of the editorial team, Joker went on to be the legendary arch-nemesis of Batman.
Image by Marija Gavrilova from Pixabay
That being said, there has been a lot of character portrayal over the years through many mediums. Some representations were legendary, and some were just downright cringeworthy. Boarding the hype-train for Joaquin Phoenix's Joker, today, we are going to focus on the synopsis for the masterpiece of a movie.
Spoiler alert, I'm going to share my views and opinion about everything in this movie. Phoenix's take on the Laughing man was as original as Heath Ledger's Joker in Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. Both the movie and Joaquin Phoenix, delivered a performance that has been engraved on the walls of the hall of fame.
Source: Odisha bytes
Being a fanboy of the character myself, I was hooked from the opening credits, unconsciously perched at the edge of my seat with endless anticipation. Director Todd Phillips orchestrated the tonality, the grim and depressing aura of Gotham and even the color tone of the movie to place its audience into the mind of "Joker." As the movie reel continues to turn, you slowly start to sympathize with the character. Arthur Fleck is a clown by profession, with aspirations to become a stand-up comedian. He suffers from bouts of pathological laughter brought on by mental illness when he is under pressure. The adversity he faced in his daily life, leaves the audience no other option but to sympathize with Arthur. With his bedridden mother to take care of and his longing for a father figure in his life, Arthur's misfortunes are relatable.
The continuous bashing from life both literally and figuratively pushes Aurthur into a slow descent towards lunacy. By this point, as a part of the audience, you will only feel as if there is no other outcome for someone like Author, given his circumstances. Half-way through the movie, you'd want to relate to the protagonist.
You will feel good about his first three murders. You will justify the massacre by saying to yourself, "It is only self-defense." You will want to console him and feel the monstrous pain he feels. His journey only depicts as if he's one of the many lost souls that the system failed to save. This movie will strike the deepest chords in your heart, which you never knew existed. After witnessing Aurthur Fleck metastasize as The Joker, I realized that whoever related to Joker, at a minimal level, they all want to become a monster like him. It's only the excruciating circumstances that they lack.
Source: Slate
(For young readers) This doesn't mean you should start acting like him just because your parents invoked curfew past 8 pm, or you went through a "bad" break up. Focus on your studies. For the True Fans Now onto the Storytelling aspect of the movie. If you had seen the movie, you could easily dub it as a Joker origin story.
However, there is also enough evidence throughout this film, which urges us that we should not necessarily interpret these events literally because Arthur Fleck is an unreliable narrator. Well, he doesn't precisely narrate to us, but all the movie's events are seen through his eyes, and some key moments depicted by us are revealed to be Fight Club style subjective fantasies. For example, his "relationship" with one of the tenants in his building Sophie Dumond. Along with these apparent inconsistencies, lots of other elements of the story don't add up.
This brings me to my next and final point; the Joker's origin is always meant to be left a mystery. He's a force of anarchy without any defined sympathetic backstory to make us feel for him. Even in the story hailed as a Joker origin story - The Killing Joke by Alan Moore. In this issue, Alan Moore's Joker is like Fleck, a struggling comic, but it famously ends with the Joker implying that his past is a multiple choice. That was the interpretation. Heath Ledger's Joker used in the Dark Knight with his shifting narratives of his scars.
As the Joker draws to a close, Arthur incarcerated and chuckling to himself, claiming we wouldn't get the joke places Joaquin's Joker in the same cryptic boat as Alan Moore's Joker and Heath Ledger's Joker. It's really just one of many options in this multiple choice question of his life. And it's the option that amuses him at this moment.
Source: Newsweek
The one that he doesn't expect people to get. Maybe the part of this story that tickles him the most is in this fantasy. He gets to create his own conditions for Joker's existence. Joker gets to be the spark that ignites Gotham and be the villain the city needs. That's his ultimate fantasy.
So the choice is left to you, the viewers. You can watch Joker as a nihilistic revenge tale, or if that feels off to you, it's okay to just watch the movie as a fleeting fantasy that cracks a smile from a broken man. That's just my explanation.
Original Content by @pitboy
I am Marwan Aka @Pitboy from Bangladesh, the land of beauty. I am a Social media advertiser, a traveler, a Youtuber and, trying to be the right person.
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