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Thursday, August 14, 2008

Darkling Knights

I have not seen the film "Batman: The Dark Knight" yet, but I assume that I shall. From what I have heard it is the perfect film for the present. I hear that Batman has an enormous bunker underground where his enormous computer is situated, the computer which allows him to "control" Gotham City. Perfect control, perfect information on the lives of the citizenry, law-abiding and law-scoffing. Bunkers hidden, secret tribunals, all for the good of mankind. Bruce Wayne's apartment is in a large, glass-walled building, such as those being built in Abu Dhabai or Dubai: soulless and hard edges, glowing like platinum dreams, a millions windows gleaming like a million empty eyes. However, what I shall enjoy the most is how this film has seamlessly integrated itself into the Real World as well as the world of filmic literature. For the nasty iconography of the Joker and his desperate tortured soul have been mirrored brilliantly - no dark glass here! - in the real death of the actor who portrayed the Joker; a death assisted on by drugs, by celebrity, by too much for too little. Yet, the actor portraying Batman has been accused- in the real world- of beating ( Zap!) his mother (POW! **!**) The Dark Knight is our Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. Here we see the dark doom of happy wealth without soul which awaits. Batman and the Joker await the sleepwalkers. The sleepwalkers are us, and we have been appearing as such in uncounted numbers of trashy zombie flicks over the past few years. Ask yourself: am I LEGEND......or am I LEGION ?

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