In one of his first scenes in the movie batman, now available on HBO Max, the titular character explains his purposes in a voiceover. He wants to confront the evil inherent in Gotham. It is perhaps the first time in the cinema that Batman analyzes his own inner journey and contextualizes it in a specific way. Matt Reeves’ character is obsessed with evil. But not only that of the criminals he faces. Also the one that impacts the city in multiple and harsh ways. For the new storyline surrounding the batman, moral corruption in Gotham is a subject of capital interest.
And it is to the extent that this Batman, who has only been wearing the mask for two years, knows that his efforts have a minimal impact on the great map of things. Especially as the layers of corruption in a corrupted city intermingle to support a contemporary idea of moral destruction. Batman faces, of course, the violent streets of the city where he was born. But at the same time, to a complicated network of relationships and political favors that hang over Gotham like a threat.
batman he placed special emphasis on analyzing the fact of Gotham as a box of horrors. One so complicated that, in the end, it turns out to be a gigantic trap that Batman will have to deal with from an unknown position. At the same time, trying to uphold his duty — or what he considers to be — in the midst of all kinds of perceptions about fear and the condition of power. By the time the movie ends, it is evident that batman is learning both about his city and how to deal with the demons that haunt him.
Evil in all its versions
For the occasion, batman made the appropriate decision to build a structure well founded on collective fears. On the one hand, there is evil at a very basic level. Gotham is a city in the midst of chaos, very close to exploding in a heated social and cultural environment. A city that, by the way, is very similar to the one imagined by Todd Phillips for the film The Joker. Both one and the other are characterized by being supported by very weak points of social coexistence broken by profound inequality. In Matt Reeves’s, the tentacles of corruption have eroded Gotham’s history so much as to be unpredictable.
Paul Dano’s Enigma is the turning point about terror and evil in batman
Time and time again, the director and co-writer reminds that this young and inexperienced Batman has little idea of what lies beneath the surface of Gotham. A criminal muscle led by Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) and to a lesser extent, by the Penguin (Colin Farrell). Both show the leaks in the facade of respectability of a city obsessed with its idols. One that also tries how she can survive his wounds and horrors.
But it is Paul Dano’s Enigma that is the turning point about terror and evil in batman. This anarchist villain, with an explosive social discourse and a specific accent on collective fear, is the embodiment of evil in the movie. The villain not only kills, but also gradually destroys the layer of respectability that sustains the character’s reputation. In the end, Gotham is a hypocritical city, destroyed by its unseen sins and twisted by a poisonous evil impossible to completely eradicate.
The Batman and looks at contemporary evil
Much of the philosophical discourse of batman it has to do with how we accept contemporary evil. One that does not look for monsters or supernatural explanations about horror. And indeed, one of the film’s great triumphs is bringing them together and blending them into an elaborate substrate. While Batman fights with all his resources against criminals of all kinds and even serial killers, another type of evil is rampant in Gotham. One that concerns all its leaders and even those responsible for ensuring the law.
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batman by Matt Reeves is a look at the questionable. At the same time, about the twisted places that every society harbors. And that is one of his great triumphs at the plot level. Batman, the hero of alleys and broken streets, is now an amazed witness to the structure of an evil that has overtaken him. And one who can’t fight it with technological marvels or his sheer talent. Which, without a doubt, is the biggest crossroads of the character.