Film & TV

Aug

2017

Wonder Woman: An LGG Review

The new Wonder Woman film had a huge challenge in front of it: pleasing both the feminists who were pushing for equal representation in superhero movies, as well as the misogynist action-lovers who assumed that a female superhero could never work as an action film. Despite the films’ faults – exacerbated by the disproportionate amount of scrutiny under which it fell – it performed admirably on both fronts.

Although I love comics, I never managed to develop a passion for Wonder Woman. I tended to think of her more as a female Superman than anything else – and I didn’t particularly care for him either. While my attention was focussed by the dark, gritty world of Batman, I missed out on the bizarre humour, sensitivity, kinkiness and action of Wonder Woman. Making a chick flick of Wonder Woman would have ruined it completely: instead, Jenkins balanced wonderfully on the edges of extreme violence and cautious optimism for the state of the world.

Wonder Woman was created by the polygamous inventor and psychologist William Moulton Marston. A psychologist who by all accounts loved and respected his wife, another psychologist named Elizabeth, he imagined a superhero who would fight with love instead of brute force and took on her suggestion that it should be a woman. Their live-in partner was the physical inspiration for the very first Wonder Woman, her bracelets of power taken from those that Olive often wore. Elizabeth and Olive would go on to create their personal version of Themyscira, co-parenting their children by William after his death and living together well into old age.

Marston believed in a sexually liberated, powerful woman. He believed that the future belonged to these women: that they would be the ones to guide humanity to a more peaceful future. He was a dedicated feminist, in a time when the idea was virtually unheard of, especially in men. He believed that bondage and submission in both genders could be a loving and empowering experience, and long before Beyonce he knew that girls should run the world. He was remarkable in expressing complex ideals of gender as early as the 1930s.

In The American Scholar, he wrote:

Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don’t want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women’s strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.

Sadly, Marston lost his life at a young age, after just six years of working on Wonder Woman comics. Control of her character moved hands several times from then, each writer taking her in a different direction, from whimsical to patronising and so on. When she was eventually accepted into the Justice Society of America (which would later become the Justice League), it was as their secretary.

Now that we have the background out of the way, let’s get into a spoilerific review!

I can only tell you my opinion of the film, which is that it was everything I hoped for. The Amazons were athletic and beautiful, their presence on screen defined by displays of muscle and feats of strength. Diana is no different, although her status as the youngest of the Amazons – and one who is part god – is shown in her naive impetuousness, out of which she often has to fight.

At points, her ignorance of the world at large is used for comic relief and sometimes it leads to profound moments of gender and societal satire. When Diana is taken shopping, she believes a corset to be a kind of armour, and doesn’t understand the concept of having to reign in her stomach. The main source of comedy in the film – the tenacious Etta Candy, played by Lucy Davis in a way that would have fit well into the Ghostbusters remake – remarks that only a woman with no stomach would say that. It’s easy to accept this as a straightforward statement about the foibles of gender, or you could read it as Diana’s insight into the ridiculous extremes that women have gone to for the purpose of pleasing men. This, obviously, not being a problem where Diana is from.

The entirety of Steve and Diana’s relationship seems based on an inversion of traditional sexist filmmaking. Shortly after his arrival Steve (played by real-life sex symbol Chris Pine) bathes in a rock pool, and Diana’s intense scrutiny of his body when he emerges is the perfect example of a female gaze. Confused about Steve’s watch, she asks, innocently enough, “you let that little thing tell you what to do?” Combined with Steve’s continued protestations that he is an “above average” specimen of a man, we get a wry feminist sense of humour which – I could be wrong – aren’t alienating to men. Later on, Steve will take on the role of most women in superhero and action films – the sacrificial lamb, whose demise spurns the hero on to fulfil their potential.

Although the film is largely propped up by a male cast, the women truly stand out. Aside from Diana herself, Etta Candy’s part – however small – is fantastic, providing the sassy female sidekick whose lack of fighting experience doesn’t prevent her from lifting a sword to help. Even the cast of villainy represented women, with the girls-can-be-evil-too murderous scientist who provides her male counterpart with the strength he needs to even attempt to fight Diana.

Diana is beautiful, of course, and strong. She is the woman who reclaims No Man’s Land, who as a child sets her heart on a weapon to kill gods, who resolutely does not do what she’s told and who gently, forcefully, pushes away unwanted physical contact. She realises early on that pitting men against women isn’t helpful, and that love not rage can save the world…however, she isn’t afraid to cut some bad guys down on the journey and dominate a battle scene.

Wonder Woman is by no means the perfect superhero movie – if one can be said to exist – but coming as it has after a decade-long deluge that would have been nigh-on impossible to achieve. Of course, everyone’s ideal superhero flick will be slightly different, but if you’re a fan of explosive action scenes, mythology, ground-shattering landings and fight scenes of dazzling strength interspersed with wit, you won’t go far wrong with Wonder Woman.

Bring on the Justice League movie..

Originally posted on Liverpool Girl Geeks

Aug

2017

Steven Universe: A Feminist Dream

Let’s have a chat about Steven Universe.

Steven Universe is two shows. One is about a supernatural boy living with his ass-kicking alien guardians, fighting the forces of evil that would literally tear the world apart; the other, a magic boy with a pink shield, teaching compassion and humanity to ancient otherworldly women made of precious stones.

But the fact that it doesn’t easily fit into the concept of a ‘girls’ or boys’ show is the awesome foundation on which this show is built.

The Premise (real quick)

Steven is the child of a human male and a Gem woman. He lives with three alien women – the Crystal Gems – who are part of a rebellion against their home planet. As Steven grows up he learns more about his mother and ancestry, developing his powers and helping the Gems to protect Earth.

The Crystal Gems

The Gems’ Homeworld comes across as a nightmarish dystopian oligarchy, ruled by the Diamonds. The rest of the gems are ranked in order of rarity and strength, from Crystals down to Pearls, which are mass-manufactured servant gems. Every gem has their pre-ordained role, and is expected to do nothing else – it’s like something Aldous Huxley would have written.

The more you learn about the Gems’ planet and society, the more impressive the Crystal Gems appear. Amethyst, the youngest, emerged on Earth and lived her first years in isolation; Pearl has learned to be her own Gem, rejecting her preordained life of servitude.

Love is Love

The third Gem, Garnet, is probably the most complex of the Crystal Gems. A fusion of two gems, she is an amalgamation of the aristocratic Sapphire and a standard Ruby soldier, who fall in love over the class divide. Despite the fact that Sapphire’s life is valued much more highly than Ruby’s, the two have a love so great that they can’t bear being apart – so they never are. Garnet is a unique combination, possessing both Sapphire’s stoicism and Ruby’s passion.

Pearl also has a great love – the now absent Rose Quartz, Steven’s mother. Her resentment for Steven’s father isn’t subtle, and there’s no attempt to shy away from the fact that what she felt for Rose wasn’t loyalty or admiration, but truly romantic love.

There are other shows which feature gay and lesbian relationships, although they are typically more subtle. Adventure Time and The Legend of Korra are both commendable for including lesbian relationships – Princess Bubblegum and Marceline in Adventure Time were obviously once an item, and Korra’s hand-holding and lingering looks with Asami have been confirmed as indication of their blossoming romance.

There are certainly other examples, although many of them require a little reading between the lines, usually thanks to restrictions set by less progressive networks.

Any amount of normalising non-conventional is commendable, but Steven Universe is hugely successful in being overt without making an issue of it. There’s no shock and horror from anyone that a woman could love another woman; it’s not a defining character trait or a point of contention. It just is.

Pick A Gender, Any Gender

When you first tackle Steven Universe, you might be unsure where to place it in terms of childrens’ cartoons. The protagonist is male, but his powers, in the form of a rose shield and healing spit, are traditionally feminine (within the standard fantasy adventure set-up). The Gems appear as humanoid females, but their bodies are an illusion, and gender an alien concept. It’s tempting to try and apply female qualities to the Gems, as we so often see male and female as binary opposites. By taking away the option of being male, we can more easily perceive the sliding scale of gender in all of its complexities.

Steven’s best friend Connie is another fantastic addition to the show, a remarkably intelligent young girl who becomes his fearless ally and sword-wielding protector. Their friendship is built on equality, and just like Garnet they work best together, becoming both the sword and the shield.

Steven Universe contains storylines about friendship and understanding, and others about monsters, horrible experiments and the desire to fight. It’s nowhere near as overtly female-oriented as the Powerpuff Girls, but also not as traditionally masculine as other fighting cartoons such as The Power Rangers. Frankly, it manages to toe the tightrope of gender neutrality better than any other show I can think of, even the incredible Adventure Time.

In times like these, it’s all too easy to feel that attitudes about women and homosexuality are becoming less progressive: that’s why it’s such a beautiful thing to see inclusivity and feminism in shows for children.

Steven Universe isn’t the first to introduce these concepts, it shouldn’t be the last, and – despite intervention from networks slowing progress – there does seem to be a greater level of acceptance moving forward.

If, like me, you dream of a world where gender or sexuality doesn’t define your character, I urge you to enjoy some Steven Universe.

Originally posted on Liverpool Girl Geeks

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Jun

2014

Take A Trip To Mar Del Plata

As part of 2014’s issue of Neutral Magazine, I was lucky enough to visit the 20th Viva Spanish and Latin American Film Festival in Manchester! I watched two films and reviewed one; the hilarious buddy comedy Mar Del Plata. Relive my experience here or over at the Neutral 2014 website.

This Argentine off-beat movie, written and directed by Ionathan Klajman and co-directed by Sebastian Dietsch in their debut, is a wonderful example of the universality of friendship.

Everything about this film felt so familiar, from the buddy road trip storyline to the failing relationships and yearning for a simpler time in childhood.

The story begins when Joaquin is given a free weekend trip to Mar Del Plata by his antiquated father, and invites his childhood friend David for whom the journey couldn’t come at a better time; his wife has gone to stay with her mother after what she felt was neglect, and he’s unsure whether he still loves her. Joaquin is going through a similar slump as his wife left him only two months previously, and he begins to dwell on his failed relationships.

As a twist of fate, another holiday is being taken at the same time by Elena, Joaquin’s first real girlfriend who broke his heart, together with her husband of two years who also happens to be a highly successful writer. Joaquin and Elena find each other on the dank-looking beach and old feelings resurface, especially when David occupies her husband Vega with the threat of exposing him as a fraud.

Mar Del Plata has all the right ingredients to go into an off-beat dark comedy indie, something in the vein of Little Miss Sunshine or Juno. The film constantly plays with the fourth wall, switching from non-diegetic to diegetic music in amusing ways while Joaquin speaks directly to us. When he talks about his childhood, and his first ever fight with David, we’re shown the story in 8mm footage; in a brief journey through his ancestry, he flicks through images on a ViewMaster. This isn’t just a technique to evoke nostalgia though, as these media forms fit seamlessly with Joaquin’s personality – his apartment, littered with dead plants, is indicative of his man-child state, especially now that he’s single. So much is told about the characters through tiny acts, especially when David relives his childhood by releasing chickens in an act of rebellion, and perhaps hope for freedom.

The beach itself feels like something you would find in England – it’s dank and grey and the water looks unpleasantly cold. It’s obviously an off-season trip as there are very few extras on the beach, and they sit placidly so as not to distract from the action in front of them. All of the realism in this film is brought into harsh focus, down to the creaking of David’s crummy car, the white Styrofoam body board and the tacky plastic, stripped doorway of the hideous diner they come across. What makes this film feel even more familiar is the constant mention of football; one of Joaquin’s biggest victories in life was scoring a Chilean goal as a child, and David seems to measure years in World Cups. Culturally, it felt more familiar than an American film.

No one is a hero in this film, and no one is a villain – sure, Elena’s husband is obviously a bit of a scumbag, but she isn’t exactly a saint either. That’s one of the triumphs of the film, that it shows human flaws in such a brutally honest way but also ensures that we’re encouraged to think about the other side of the story. It’s a given for most of the film that David has acted neglectfully toward his wife, until he points out that there were reasons why he seemed unsympathetic at the time. Joaquin acts quite cruelly to Elena, despite the fact that she broke his heart in the first place; seeing her only aggravates the wounds of his recent separation, and she cruelly leaves her husband by telling him it’s all his fault.

Mar Del Plata doesn’t point any fingers; it treats morality with ambiguity, so we aren’t left feeling judgemental toward any of the characters. These are just normal guys, who as children felt that they could have amounted to anything if they just tried enough, and have been struggling ever since to come to turns with the harsh realities of adult life.

In comparison to the Chilean film Le Passion De Michaelango which Daria has reviewed, it felt like a universal story, one not bound to ethnicity or location – it felt humble, sad, and warm, like the memory of a childhood sweetheart.

May

2013

Fight Club and Masculinity

“Masculinity is in rapid transition, and for many, change is painful…the unquestioned authority of men (along with other former ‘male certainties’) have evaporated, leaving a deep sense of being lost.” – John Benyon

Fight Club (Palahniuk, 1996), among other masculinist texts of the 1990s such as American Psycho (Ellis 1991), expresses the discomfort of white, heterosexual men in today’s society which values material possession over spiritual wealth and brand names over individual identity. The castration of consumer culture has deprived the Narrator of the text of all personality, especially masculinity, and in seeking an escape he creates Tyler Durden; an anarcho-primitivist and alpha-male who takes on the role of father to the feminised men of consumerism, the middle-men of history who have no great war or depression to fight against (Palahniuk, 1996), only an internal struggle for meaning.

Lack of identity is one of the common themes that run through Fight Club; it tells the story of a white, middle-class man in America, a man with such a crisis of identity that he has no name. The Narrator refers to himself only in third person, and in reference to his internal organs, often as “Jack’s raging bile duct” in the film or “Joe’s Broken Heart” in the original book. The two names represent the Narrator’s crisis of identity; he is the displaced male of the late 20th and early 21st century, finding himself lacking definition in a world where we are so commonly defined by what makes us different. With the persistence of feminism, with race equality and gay pride, white heterosexual men are finding themselves held accountable for the sins of their predecessors but denied access to the rights they had. When Benyon suggests that “The unquestioned authority of men…[has] evaporated, leaving a deep sense of being lost” (Benyon, 2002) he evokes the idea that Tyler Durden vocalises when he discusses the internal spiritual war of men. For Amy Taubin, a film critic, this loss has been transformed into masochism; Fight Club is not about inflicting pain, but about enduring as much of it as possible. The extensive self-harming suggests that, unlike other oppressed groups, white men have no particular enemy to fight against – so they fight themselves and each other, and eventually together against the men in power who have placed them in powerless positions.

“Although these men are everywhere in power, that aggregate power of the group does not translate into an individual sense of feeling empowered. In fact, this group feels quite powerless.” Kimmel and Kauffman, Cultures of Masculinity

When Palahniuk was writing the novel, he interviewed many young men about their family lives. One thing that occurred to him was that for the white, Christian male in America, there is no rite of passage, except through the commodities acquired over years such as cars and houses (Palahniuk, 2001). Traditionally the father would have led his son into manhood, but as Bly (1997) notes, boys without fathers become “perpetual adolescents”. They have no idea how to be men in a traditional sense; as the Narrator says, “I can’t get married. I’m a thirty year old boy” (Fincher, 1999). He has filled his home with objects of consumerism, hoping that he can express his individuality through clever furniture and different varieties of mustard, but finds himself trapped in his “lovely nest” (Palahniuk, 1996, pp 44), uncomforted by material success. The Narrator is a feminised man, rendered impotent by consumerism, no longer masturbating to pornography but trying to find an identity through physical objects, specifically furnishings; “What kind of dining set defines me as a person?” (Fincher, 1999) he asks himself, and tries not to think about who he really is, or what he really wants from life.

Kimmel and Kauffman, authors of Cultures of Masculinity, discuss the recent crisis of white masculinity, pointing out that “although these men are everywhere in power, that aggregate power of the group does not translate into an individual sense of feeling empowered. In fact, this group feels quite powerless.” The Narrator feels helpless in his work, his home and his emotional life. He has become passive and feminised, which leads to his creation of Tyler Durden – an active male, who is strong-willed, capable and beautiful. He is also a construct of hyper-masculinity, and the perfect antithesis to Marla, who defies gender by attending Remaining Men Together, a testicular cancer support group. Tyler’s response to this is founding Fight Club – the one group Marla cannot infect with her femininity.

The creation of Fight Club works as a device to encourage young men to reclaim their masculine birth-right. This group of men “have tried to conquer a world without frontiers and remain physically powerful while eschewing all violent behaviour” (Boon, 2003). Fight Club allows them an outlet for their aggression and a chance for masculine male bonding – as opposed to the femininised male bonding of Remaining Men Together. Fight Club, and later Project Mayhem, give the men of the story an opportunity to prove their worth by traditional means.

“The point was to take the hit…it was more about the receiving.” Edward Norton

The lack of fathers in the lives of their sons is an important element in Fight Club as it draws comparisons between fathers, Gods and heroes. If fathers transmit “culturally approved forms of masculinity to their sons” (Pease, 2000), then what happens to the boys who are deprived of this education? Over time the responsibilities of the father have changed drastically, and he is quite often distant, perhaps literally; “The post-war father was seen as a towering figure in the life of his child not so much by his presence as by his absence” (Pleck, 1987), and gaining his approval became important. Tyler becomes a Hero or legend, and thereby becomes a father to the groups, providing them with an acceptable means of expressing masculinity and fighting the “spiritual war” that is the only way to define themselves.

The downside of this, however, is that Tyler disappoints the Narrator in the same ways his father did – by running away to different countries, setting up franchises of Fight Club in the same way his father set up other families, and the Narrator once again feels abandoned. “I am Joe’s Broken Heart because Tyler’s dumped me. Because my father dumped me” (Palahniuk, pp 134). Although Tyler is the epitome of the hero, the God-like figure of knowledge and strength, he ends up reinforcing the same institutions he seeks to destroy. In the creation of Project Mayhem he simply invents a new bureaucracy, where names and individual identity mean nothing. The members seem to find some nihilistic comfort in the fact that they are not “beautiful and unique snowflakes” (Palahniuk, pp 134), but they are essentially still trapped in an institution where they are just one of many cogs. Only through death do the members of Project Mayhem reclaim their identity, most importantly their masculine identity through the paternal surname, as with Bob becoming Robert Paulson. The Narrator says that “In death, we become heroes” (Palahniuk, 1996, pp 178), but Bob’s death becomes a turning point for the protagonist, who sees that nihilistic masochism hasn’t saved his feminised friend Bob, but turned him into an object and a martyr for the cause.

One of Tyler’s largest grievances is the way that many have felt abandoned by God, the father. He argues that they can now only get attention from God from being bad – “Unless we get God’s attention, we have no hope of damnation of redemption” (Palahniuk, 1996, pp 141) This is tied into ideas of masculine glory in myths and Tyler feels it is the only way to truly beat death – “We’ll be legend. We won’t grow old” (Palahniuk, 1996, pp 11). Tyler says these things because the Narrator is too afraid to – he would rather be an apostle of Tyler’s than a martyr himself. In the book, he (most likely deliberately, on a subconscious level) fails to explode the building he is in because he uses a method of explosive which has never worked for him before. He succeeds in destroying other buildings but cannot bring himself to die. At the end of the book, the Narrator finds himself in an insane asylum, still surrounded by men who have worshipped him as Tyler Durden – the film alters the ending so that he purges himself of Tyler, symbolically killing his father/God and his concept of masculinity by shooting himself, and taking Marla’s hand in an image that evokes Adam and Eve, on the precipice of the new world they want to build.

“The longing for fathers was a theme I heard a lot about. The resentment of lifestyle standards imposed by advertising was another.” Chuck Palahniuk

As is fitting for a man who has been denied his masculinity, the Narrator finds comfort in the support group, Remaining Men Together. The book explains that this is the only support group at which he can cry – he experiences years of watching others bare their souls but is only granted his own release in a room surrounded by men who are also seeking to reclaim their masculinity. The Narrator takes comfort in the chant, “We are men. Men is what we are” (Fincher, 1999), but can only express his anxiety against the large breasts of a castrated male. Bob becomes for the Narrator a symbol of his own predicament – in trying to prove himself a man by today’s standards (by body-building and creating a commodity of his own body) Bob ultimately had his manhood taken away from him. Worse than that, when he was treated with testosterone his body responded by increasing his estrogen to the point where he developed “bitch tits” (Palahniuk, 1996, pp 17) – his own body betrayed him and feminised him. Bob is a perfect symbol of the feminised man, whose “self-image has been so battered that they inject themselves with synthetic testosterone” (Benyon, 2002).

Neither the book or the film Fight Club were guaranteed to sell well. They spoke to a specific group of people, for whom there was not much else, and highlighted issues such as castration anxiety, a lack of solid identity and traditional concepts of the Father, God and Hero, among others. After the publication of Fight Club, young men began to approach Chuck Palahniuk asking where they could find a Fight Club near them – it is clear that a masculine identity was something that many men felt they were lacking. The struggle to reclaim male heritage in a world where gender identities are being broken down is a theme that persists today, maintaining Fight Club’s status as a vital text, in either form, for this generation of young men.

Originally posted on the Neutral Magazine website for Neutral 2013

Jan

2013

Doctor Who Christmas 2012

Things I loved about The Snowmen:

That part of it was shot in Bristol.

It’s cool to see the Doctor walking around where I used to work.

The continued use of the line “Winter is coming”

I don’t know if it was deliberate – I find it hard to believe that they couldn’t know that they were quoting one of the biggest new series in the last few years. Still, it made me smile.

Richard E. Grant and Ian McKellen

Just generally.

Holmes and Watson are an inter-species married lesbian couple.

Doctor Who’s tradition of promoting gay rights is brought to a fantastic point when two married women are on BBC 1 on Christmas Day. Also, “Good morning, I’m a lizard woman from the dawn of time, and this is my wife” is a brilliant line.

“I’m the clever one, you’re the potato one!”

The Doctor’s insults toward Strax were hilariously cruel. He can’t help having tiny little legs.

“Remain calm, human scum!”

Strax himself was comedy gold.

Scary Snowmen feeding on fear.

Stephen Moffat is a legend when it comes to the scary episodes of Doctor Who. Although the episode had to deal with big plot points coming up, it still managed to make something simple into something terrifying – as it did with Silence in the Library and Blink.

Clara explanabrags.

I loved her in her previous appearance and was thrilled to see her again. The episode really set me up for the next season with her as companion – it’s getting thoroughly interesting. I love a companion who can keep up with the Doctor; she’s quick-witted, incredibly clever and has a huge imagination. Their relationship is an amazing one. Also, I hope she comes up with more fantastic stories, like that she invented fish because she dislikes swimming alone. Genius, absolute genius.

Jul

2012

The Dark Knight Rises – with some serious spoilers.

Important: There are spoilers-aplenty. I originally tried to write this without any but found it far too difficult for an in-depth review and analysis, so here are we are.

First off: I am a huge fan of Batman and have been for years and while it may bother other Batman fans, Nolan’s Batman has always been my Batman. He’s dark, gritty and realistic; he goes through unspeakable physical and mental torture in his mission to make the world a better place for good people while not persecuting the often mentally ill villains he faces. I re-read Knightfall shortly before seeing The Dark Knight Rises and through the pages saw his own dark desperation drive him to breaking.

The film, as the graphic novel, begins with Bruce Wayne in a pretty sorry state. After eight years of hermitude (and it does seem to me that perhaps someone might have noticed Bruce Wayne and Batman have disappeared at the same time) Wayne looks significantly older and is only mobile thanks to a cane. Of course, he could have paid his way out of his injuries but he has given up all hope – his city hates him and hundreds have died because of him, including the love of his life, and it’s all his fault. He was content to stay away – it was for the best, and the city saw Dent as a hero. The Bat-signal was rusted and broken. It is Bane that makes the beacon necessary again.

Like Batman, Bane’s face and mask are interchangable. At only one brief point is Bane’s full face seen, and although hints are made that the mask is important to his survival, it isn’t made entirely clear – he claims that he would not die without it, but it is also mentioned that it keeps his pain at bay. He suffers without it, but it is not even implied that this mask feeds venom into him, the chemical which the comic book Bane uses to become unnaturally strong. The voice that I had found so strange in the adverts was no less strange at first, a creepy British groan. It is perhaps the slow, calculated way that he talks which makes him seem so terrifying, and as his eyes are the only part of his face visible he gains an almost Darth Vader-esque threatening quality. Personally I love Tom Hardy and since the announcement that he had been cast I believed he would be an incredible Bane and he didn’t let me down. He was just as clever, calm and brutal as the comic Bane, and equally a hulking mass – watching Batman punch him was like watching a boxer hit a punching bag in comparison to the bone-crunching assault it would be for anyone else.

When Selina first appeared, she reminded me of Michelle Pfeiffer’s rendition. A put-upon woman, treated like nothing by rich men and employed in the newly-built Wayne Manor which is hosting Harvey Dent Day. Bruce, who hasn’t been seen by anyone in years, catches her in the act of stealing his mother’s pearl necklace – presumably the one she was wearing the night of her murder – but that wasn’t what she was after. She uses some of the same humour that Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman did but with more independence and a cute blonde sidekick(/lover?) – although it is important to point out that, while the mask pushed back on her head looks adorably like cat ears, she is not once referred to as Catwoman. Nothing supernatural happened to this woman, just a life of hardship and anger toward the social elite of a city which has abandoned its poor.

Additional political tension is introduced early by the Dent Act which was put into place after Dent’s death, which sought to deny parole to any Blackgate inmate whose crime was deemed part of a “larger criminal enterprise” (this is from a viral press release of the Act before the film was released). But another interesting theme is that of orphans, of boys without families. It is revealed early that Blake is an orphan, and he has a special place in his heart for the boy’s home that raised him but has since been neglected by its main doner, the Wayne Foundation. Bane can take advantage of the overflow of orphaned boys abandoned at the age of sixteen and builds an army of desperate young men. Blake knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman because he can understand what having your parents killed does to a child. They share the orphan connection that Batman often shares with his Robins and it touched my heart that Bruce would keep Wayne Manor as a stronghold for children who weren’t from as fortunate families.

Here’s where the real spoilers are. Talia. Oh, Talia. When Marion Cotillard was announced for The Dark Knight Rises, I prayed that she would play Talia, a character I’ve long been fond of but whose appearance in the game Arkham City really pleased me. Learning that Cotillard was just to play a love interest was disappointing, although I ended up thoroughly enjoying her Miranda – until the reveal, at which a huge grin spread across my face.. I loved that she was the child and on my second viewing I paid special attention to whether the child who rose from the pit was assigned a gender, and of course she wasn’t. The relationship between Talia and Bane was incredibly beautiful, but I have to admit that I feel it took motivation away from Bane. In Knightfall, Bane’s one mission is to destroy Batman and he uses intelligence, manipulation and physical strength to succeed – this was done perfectly in the film, but the motivation of doing it for a girl took some of Bane’s power away, for me at least. Jonathan Crane’s cameo was a great joy for me, although I would like to have known how – as far as I could tell, only the Blackgate prisoners were released and I would have thought that Crane would be in Arkham. Not that it bothers me especially – a haggard Cillian Murphy with straw erupting from his suit made an excellent judge.

The film was full of incredible moments for the Batman geek. Finally having the tables turned on him as Selina disappears and his remark “So that’s what that feels like” made me chuckle, and made obvious just how disarmed he is by her after eight years of absence. Some of his explanations of the nature of Batman appealed hugely to the obsessive fan because they fit in so easily with what I already felt to be the true Batman – that Bruce Wayne the person is not important, that Batman could be anybody because the symbol is what matters. It also feeds toward the underlying suggestion that Blake could be the new Batman. The “Break You!” scene came much earlier than I had expected, as I had assumed the film would end with this, but the chance to see Batman build himself up again and gain faith in himself once more was beautiful – the symmetry of the prison’s depths and the well he fell into in his child helped to reaffirm his need to get himself up again, to rise. The burning Bat on the side of a building and the reconstruction of the Bat-signal filled the fan in me with such joy and pride. The army of police running into gunfire and the squad of orphans were also incredibly touching.

I don’t particularly want to talk about the ending. I don’t think it’s important whether Bruce lived or died and I think it was left purposely ambiguous. I’m okay with that. It’s a nice idea that he could have made it out, and seeing Bruce and Selina together in Florence filled me with hope and left me satisfied with the ending, even if I am only joining Alfred in his fantasy of a better life, but it’s unimportant to the legacy of Batman whether Bruce Wayne survives. Although you would think someone would have noticed that they went missing, reappeared and died at the same time.

There is so much more I could have written but I would rather engage in a talk about anything else a reader may want to discuss – so please leave a comment!