The Batman, or The Shape of Things From Behind the Cowl

*Warning: this post features heavy spoilers for The Batman*

Only after The Batman’s opening introduction to the Riddler — a perfectly tense and quiet piece of voyeuristic horror, that combines Fincher’s Zodiac with a dash of Haneke’s Caché — , do you get a proper introduction to the titular character. Over this narration by a gruffy-voiced Batman/Robert Pattinson, we see a montage of Gotham’s cityscape on Halloween night. People in various costumes drinking and partying under a permanent film of rain, the city’s center brimming with joy. But around it, things have rotted away noticeably. Crime permeates the city like a shroud, with convenience stores robbed left-and-right and groups of thuggish youths making the streets a living hell for any random passer-by. Only when the spotlight pierces the clouds and the symbol hovers over the skyline, only then does the scurrying ensue. “If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.” Nietzsche’s infamous quote suddenly begins taking the shape of a monstrous bat, filling the emptiness of each and every shadowy street corner and back alley. Some run away as quickly as they can .Those who don’t risk getting their teeth knocked out, their noses caved in, their breath pummeled out of their lungs, their arms and legs twisted like rotten twigs.

“Two years of nights have made me a nocturnal animal.” And the animal’s named vengeance.

And what good is vengeance? Evidence of positive change isn’t anywhere to be seen. The growing social divide is pushing the lower class into the precipice, crime is on the rise, violence is unending. Batman himself recognizes this, is trapped by this; he sees the hopelessness encircling everything, and he doesn’t seem to be able to escape it. When he rescues a someone from a gang in the beginning of the film, they begs him for their life, “please don’t hurt me.” Does he care? His silence is ambigous. His sort of uncaring, obsessive vigilantism has all the fascistic traces of Rorschach in Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Both him and this Batman see the world in moral absolutes, as a pure black-and-white tapestry made of the innocent and guilty, the latter deserving only the most violent of retributions. Even the opening monologue feels more Rorschach than the straight caped crusader we’re used to seeing. “They think I’m hiding in the shadows, but I am the shadows.”

Here lies the irony in this interpretation of the caped crusader: for someone so committed to a clear distinction between good and evil, the average citizen can’t help but look at an angry man dressed as bat as anything other than a freakish anomaly, one that doesn’t, and shouldn’t, belong.

But he does belong. He couldn’t exist anywhere else. And, for the time being, he couldn’t exist in any other shape or form.

When you look at Bruce outside the suit and cowl, you see the toll this venture is taking on him. Sleep appears to be an unknown concept to him (this may be the first live-action Bruce Wayne we never see waking up from bed at any given time, but I’m not 100% sure on this). Bruises and scars litter the leanness of his body, the developed musculature not hiding away the self-devouring thinness underneath. Never has Batman looked more vampyric than here; he exudes the aura of a modern nosferatu, this lumbering leafless trunk perpetually bent to an invisible wind of its own making.

In short, he’s no hero. His focus is on the supposed bad guy, on stomping out the weeds, not caring for the garden. He lacks empathy, and he lacks trust, even to those that, just like him, we’re left scared by their world. He just can’t see them.

There are tons of plays on perspective throughout the film. Reeves’ has used recurringly used them throughout his career. From his Planet of the Apes movies use of centered close-ups, to Cloverfield’s absolutely invigorating take on found-footage horror. Here, Reeves uses copious amounts mounted camera shots in vehicles to enhance their innerent kineticism; Penguin’s and Batman’s chase sequence is tightly shot, mostly filled with interior and reaction shots; the a good deal of the already mentioned Riddler introduction plays out in a first person perspective. But it’s with Batman himself that you get Reeves’ take on perception is one that goes beyond the purely visual or stylistic.

One of the niftiest additions to Batman’s utility belt is the special contact lenses he uses to audiovisually record his ventures into Gotham’s wild. It feels vintage Batman, the type of overindulgent gadgetry that could just serve the perfectly noble purpose of “it looks cool, so why not have it?” But more interestingly, it helps us situate Bruce/Batman, not only in his world, but also within his own subjective self. It materializes the fortress he has created around him in the form of his cowl, and allows us to perceive how its foundations are beginning to crack (when takes off his mask and we first see the black eye make-up, it almost feels like the cowl filtered all of the outside pain and left it on his skin as mere residue).

When he asks Selina to infiltrate 44 Below, the Iceberg Lounge’s “bar within the bar”, in search of clues on the possible mob rat teased by the Riddler’s second victim, he makes her use his contact lenses, which transmit what she’s seeing in real time to his computer.. She, on the other hand, is more interested in finding out what happened to her friend Annika, who has just been kidnaped by the mob. From the safe distance of his keyboard, he asks her to maintain eye contact with each and every man on the bar, so the computer can scan each face and produce an ID; meanwhile, she has to wear the skimpy clothes and walk through the suffocating heat produced by men high out of their minds, drooling and goggling after her like starving dogs teased with a bloody leg of lamb. The result is a tense conflict of perspectives where Batman looks through Selina’s eyes, but doesn’t face the discomfort of each violating gaze that meets her. You could say he is looking at the supposed bigger picture, detaining and neutralizing the Riddler (something he’s doing more for himself rather than for the sake of the city), but all the while he’s throwing someone innocent right into the tiger’s lair. Even Selina calls out his coldness, claiming she knows he was born rich from the way he can easily detach himself from the rubble he walks on. Privilege also comes into factor later in the movie, when Batman scours the Riddler’s apartment for the second time in search of some element he missed about the Riddler’s grand plan. It’s officer Martinez who, coming from a working class family, recognizes the Riddler’s weapon as a carpet tool, something a rich person would probably never even know about. This is what allows him to find how the final plan the Riddler has in store for the city. His privilege, his psychological and social distance to Gotham actively hurt him and, consequently, the city itself.

There’s something of Mark Fisher’s idea of the Weird to Reeves’ Batman. Fisher says the Weird taps into the notion of a discomforting presence, something (or in this case, someone) who shouldn’t exist, and yet does. The fusing of two elements that, in some way, do not fit together, as if two unmatching puzzle pieces suddenly came into harmonious contact.

In this film’s universe, Batman is someone who, in some way, at a first glance, feels disconnected from his surrounding environment. This, I think, is a first for a live action take on the character. Nolan’s Batman abstracted himself into more symbolic territory (even if that didn’t prevent him punching and kicking bad guys), while Tim Burton’s, and especially Schumacher’s, interpretation were wacky enough to bypass this all together. Here, you have a heightened reality that ever-so-slowly begins bending towards the something fantastical. A rich kid who saw his parents gunned to death grew up into a moonlighter vigilante who skulks around the city ridiculously dressed as bat; he moves awkwardly, acting as if any exposure to natural light would burn his skin off; he keeps talk to a minimum, both as another weapon for intimidation and through sheer displacement and, dare I say, insecurity. This absurdity is one we tend to ignore when it comes to other capeflicks (it’s the bread and butter of the entire genre), but The Batman reclaims it from the depths of our subconscious and brings it back into light. It doesn’t say “let’s ignore the sheer absurdity of our premisse”, but instead puts a very clear emphasis on it. In a world this putrid and this corrupt, why wouldn’t this guy, shriveled by trauma and regret, who for all intents and purposes is still a kid inside, why wouldn’t he decide to dress himself as bat to fight his demons? In a city so devoid of apparent logic and meaning, why would he ever try to understand it — or better yet, why would he try to understand the city’s understanding of himself, if he’s unable to answer for his own internal contradictions?

With trauma, localizing the source is the first, and possibly the most painful, step towards recovery. With Batman, it lies not so much in the death of his parents, but more in his own sense of impotence in the moment of their killing. It’s also through the special contact lenses that we see first crack in Batman’s veneer, as he exits the first crime scene and looks the deceased mayor’s son in the eye, not so much knowing but rediscovering the pain and powerlessness he felt on that gruesome night twenty years before. And it’s in that pivotal scene between Bruce and Alfred in the hospital when he takes account of his condition, when he finally admits to himself that he’s broken, and realizes that it’s okay to feel that way. It’s not his fault.

But just this is not enough. Even after admitting his own pain, Bruce still needs to contend with the pain he inflicted on the city. One of the standout scenes of the film comes midway through the beginning of the fourth and final act (you could argue the film works in four acts, instead of the usual three), when Batman confronts the Riddler at Arkham. Two pivotal moments occur during this scene. First, Batman is confronted with the possibility that Riddler somehow found out his real identity; meaning, that, besides the obvious risks that would come to the people he loves (i.e. Alfred), his own private world of pain would be totally violated — something he in a way does (and immediately regrets doing) to Selina at the film’s midpoint, when he forces her to reveal that Falcone is her father and possibly her mother’s killer. But most importantly, this confrontation between Batman and Riddler outlines the shadow the former’s actions have cast over the city, as the latter looks upon Batman as a potential ally and partner in a fight against Gotham’s corruption, whose final blow will be a mass flooding of the city together with a terrorist attack on a packed Gotham Square Garden. The meaning of the Riddler’s intent comes into full fruition when Batman, after beating one of the attackers to near death, unmasked the bruised face of a kid who, when asked who he is, answers, in a manner as plain as day, “I’m vengeance.” In other words, Batman is not their cause, but he’s their justification, he’s what justifies terror as an answer to suffering.

He can only now recognize what he needs to do, what he needs to become, where he needs to be. Even if it’s an absurd venture — Selina tells him as much right before they say goodbye at the end — , it’s one he has to endure in order to heal. A beacon of hope for those who wander aimlessly through the night. The cowl doesn’t come off, but, finally, he takes in the full view of things. He’s not just the city’s shadow. He’s its eyes, he’s its beating and bleeding heart. He’s finally Batman.