Fierce Devotion. Batman is divine.

[||!prliignore4||I'm starting a weekly movie and/or documentary review. I'll probably only review cinema that I love or find truly useful, because I think art critics can come off as really damaging prats, and the air waves are full of enough ego-driven negativity. So here goes...||!prliignore5||]

I didn’t want to see The Dark Knight. I thought I’d need a shot of Rescue Remedy to deal with the psycho-darkness of the Joker, a role that most presumably dimmed the lights on Heath Ledger’s final days. But…it was playing at the rep theater at the end of our street, the babysitter arrived on time (it was Date Night at chez LaPorte Johnson,) and I like to push myself to go to uncomfortable places.

The Dark Knight is an effing brilliant film! I want to have dinner with director Chris Nolan, and ask him how he goes about weaving his inspiration with moral inquiry and the most rad’ of action moves. The Dark Knight is rich with universal truth and humanity. The story (elevated by a beautiful script – not one word wasted,) is one of ruthless compassion that pushed me to ask, “What’s does it mean to commit, to protect, to lead? How deep does my devotion go? Am I in this to be a hero or an artist? Am I willing to be the villain to be the savior?”

Michael Cain, as Alfred the butler, is the sagacious VP that everyone wants on their advisory. I’d love to call him and ask him how my own Great Story is playing out, what move to make next. And what’s so brilliant about Ledger’s performance is how he manages to make you feel an iota of compassion for a tortured soul that has become addicted to evil, but remotely wise. (I think he does deserve that rumored Oscar nomination, but that the award itself should be saved for an actor who will benefit from the blessings that come with it.) Christian Bale is good ‘n steady, and magnetic because of it…as is every performance in The Dark Knight.

Heroes are “admired for their brave deeds and noble qualities.” Whether manufactured or by divine circumstance, heroes are by virtue, glamorous. So what lies beneath the drive to be heroic? Is it the result of doing-ness or a being-ness? Take Protectors for example (or just as well, Artists or Mothers or Innovators or Seekers.) Protectors protect. No matter the praise, the punishment, the peril – they just ARE protectors. They embody the cause. They are bigger than the identity that is a result of their actions. They do what they do because their devotion is so fierce that they simply must show up.

Some fall. Some fly. But they keep showing up.