The Dark Knight

The movie is almost Shakespearean in its fascination with the good and evil that resides within all of us. It suggests that the greatest challenge of life is not to reject dark impulses outright, but to learn how to control them so they don't overwhelm our loftier goals.

-- Peter Howell, Toronto Star

...Mr. Nolan has found a way to make Batman relevant to his time — meaning, to ours — investing him with shadows that remind you of the character’s troubled beginning but without lingering mustiness. That’s nothing new, but what is surprising, actually startling, is that in “The Dark Knight,” which picks up the story after the first film ends, Mr. Nolan has turned Batman (again played by the sturdy, stoic Mr. Bale) into a villain’s sidekick.

-- Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

You will hunt me, you will condemn me, set the dogs on me, because it's what needs to happen, because sometimes truth is not good enough, sometime people deserves more, sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.

-- The Batman, The Dark Knight

Frankly speaking, before watching the movie, I was so attracted to the Joker, partly because of his taglines: "why so serious" and "madness is like gravity, all it needs is a little push". At the beginning of the movie, his murderous grin, freakish gaze and demonic voice pulls me in at once. As the movie progress, the war between the Batman and the Joker unfolds the ambivalence within the Batman, and that's what in the end fascinates me the most, and what makes the movie a masterpiece of our time.

Seeing his beloved Rachael being attracted to the new district attorney Harvey, Bruce/the Batman showed his principle, still aligning himself with Harvey in prosecuting Gotham criminals. Without any melodrama, the moment of choice came when he has to choose who to save, Rachael or Harvey. He went for, without any hesitation, Rachael (even though he eventually saved Harvey because of Joker's scheme). His choice reminds me of Neo's choice in Matrix, when he has to choose either to save Trinity or the last human city Zion. Neo chooses Trinity. Moral dilemma poses greatest challenge to heros, who in essence are still human.

The moral dilemmas extends from inside the Batman to the prisoners and common citizens trapped on two different boats. People on each boat have to decide whether to blow up the other boat in order to save theirs. Though eventually no one died on either of the ships, it is still poignant and thought-provoking to see the common citizen going through a vote for blowing up the other boat. However when the moment of execution came, the man who reluctantly volunteered, simply cannot turn on the detonator.

I remember my teacher on Traditional Chinese philosophy once pointed out that the most fundamental and deepest moral instinct is often the right instinct, and we are not allowed to talk about it, just as the soldier on the boat initially said: "we are not going to talk about this." But because of it's so deep and sometimes unconscious, it is impossible to put such a instinct into words, let alone to have any reasoning and logic based upon it. This inability to describe our deepest nature makes us human, I think.

Image Credit: The New York Times