JOKER

Darkier Darkiest Grim "Nevermore" "To be or not to be" ~ Hamlet "Do me or not to do me" ~ Arthur/Joker This is a straight visual en face promenade presentational film. No hard angular shots. No soft ones either. Todd's direction is tight, lean ...emphasising only minimalism. By doing so, the film can be studied while watching. Each scene moves along a singular thread so each physical gesture, inflected emotion, room's interior expands and expands and in doing so, time slows down and observation is heightened. Lucky for Todd, there is something to be heard, seen, and watched. Dialogue, Visual, Acting. Naked florescent lights are in dirty greens, blue overtones and sallow yellows fill the cluttered rooms, bleak skies, grafitti streets and characters. Everywhere is damp stark corroding and rusting broody moody Some films struggle to present cinematography, backgrounds in cohesive textures. This film excels here. You accept that you are swathed in Gotham, the oversense stimulating concreted jungle and this alone pulls in your sympathy. I quoted Hamlet, bc this is "Joker-let." A non-stop soliloquy narrative of scenes to carry you into his inner angsty open wound mangled mind and door mat heart... I quoted The Raven bc this has the despaired soul in the Edgar Allen Poe conundrum -- "Is it drugs, trauma, DNA, conditions, environment, nature or nurture" that are the springboard? We all have our own type of mental illnesses that we may or may not wear on our sleeves. Bc the real Karma subtext is: Puss and dog don't have same luck One person's humor is another person's sorrow One person's honey is another person's bitch These haunt us, or Arthur. Phoenix performance as Arthur is absorbed existentially through out, grasping to make sense of His own sense, physically, verbally, psychologically... all bruised and pulped tirelessly following rules and regulations to a falling off the other side. Puddles of fractures flowing downhill until they converge into ocean Snap crunch pop The gritty grafitti inside Arthur's head -rubbing against the skull like sand paper and glass, until it makes an "ok do what you want to do" whole persona out of it. "Embrace your Dark Side Luke". Because either Arthur loves Himself or Kills Himself or Kills The World . We all know He convinces or arrives to embrace Himself at the expense of his own self-pity and then destroys his aggressors perceived and actual. Very Hamlet-esque. "Do me or not to do me" Arthur's self deprecation morphs into The Joker. This film is not a happy journey, not light fair Stripped down to the barest of bones, ordinary objects and regular weapons become the tools of destruction, there are no cgi ray guns, green screen acrobatics, fast car chase scenes to pump up the adrenaline. It's a tragic story of trying to be and wanting to be loved, accepted and everything being glitchy and unrequited. It's about Arthur, not the Joker. Arthur's karma and cloudy clouds. And for that reason, despite its twists, it will be loved/hated by filmgoers. The TV Joker is at the furthest point of the happy scale from this Arthur's Joker. Whether This Joker is walking around Gotham, or prison or a mental hospital, You can hear the Raven singing to Him Nevermore, nevermore, nevermore, over and over again. Nevermore --we all have similar nonstop songs in our heads to-- And that inner voice is the only Arthur this Joker ever listened to and will ever listen to... -for us as well. We all go thru or experience Arthur-Joker-esque journeys... "Oh yeah, life goes on Long after the thrill of living is done,"(John Melloncamp)