When I First Fell In Love With Nolan

First off, credit must be given where credit is due. They say that a movie, is but a version of the story shown from the director's point of view and so, I must thank Christopher Nolan for sharing his masterpiece with us. I would go on to talk about the actors, but that would be digressing and as such, nothing I write would do their performances any justice. I will say this though, the movie left me devastatingly speechless.

Batman, created during the great depression, has been a symbol of inspiration for decades before I was born. Here was a superhero who's only superpower was his unparalleled capacity for moral restraint and self control. Emerging from a childhood tragedy, he has fought one hopeless situation after another, never giving up, never backing down, and never losing hope. He is not a man devoid of fear, but a man engulfed by it, who embraced it through exposure and decided not to let fear rule his life, but to take control of it and use that fear to his advantage.

Our hero's actions clearly differentiate the word avenge from revenge. Bane's unjust and tragic experiences give him a primordial motivation derived from trauma, like Batman, except Bane, decided to cleanse the world of all evil irrespective of collateral damage. Young Bruce on the other hand, promised himself that he would do everything in his power to make sure nobody has to go through an indiscriminate, life changing ordeal, similar to the one that prompted him to go from eccentric billionaire to masked vigilante.

He is the comic book hero we relate to most. He has no supernatural powers. He is what we aspire to be. Most of us buckle under any unexpected pressure that the world applies on us. We crib and whine about how unfair life is. We cannot help but look up to him because he takes a tragedy of that magnitude and uses it to improve himself. He has managed to embrace what most of us fear the most, a life of hardship and loneliness.

Even a man such as this, a man with immense character, enormous determination and an endless reservoir of will power is at the end of the day, only human. The man who lost everything inevitably became the man who denies himself any lasting romantic relationships out of fear of losing the people he cares about. His heart is his Kryptonite. Despite all his body armour and his swanky gadgets, his heart remains defenseless, and coupled with the obvious hero complex that he must have developed over the years as his masked persona, it is no surprise that a damsel in distress is his biggest weakness. Hence, it only makes sense that a victim of circumstance, a cornered animal with no way out, the whip wielding cat burglar, Selina Kyle, has the most amount of chemistry with Bruce Wayne than any other character in the comics. Wayne, though quite taken with her, knows that his alter ego is an undying, immortal symbol, a responsibility that he cannot just shake off.

Batman in all his glory, is defined by the character of the man underneath the mask and although Bruce Wayne is human, Bats (as Joker refers to him time and again), must aspire to be more. Batman, can take decisions that Wayne cannot. He can endure more, he must endure more. The essence of the comics is not about defeating evil, but about fighting it. Crime and injustice will always exist. The Dark Knight inspires us to fight back while knowing fully well that only battles can be won for the only way the war can end, is if we give up. The only possible outcome of the war is that we lose and so we must fight, if only to postpone the inevitable, to prolong a tiresome and futile war for the world that we live in, because sadly, it is the only one we have.

It is said that discretion is the better part of valour, that when the time comes to face the music, it is smarter to hide. Then why is it, that a fictional character who's stubbornly annoying characteristic of standing up in the face of imminent defeat has humbled the very image we have of ourselves? Why did all of us get goosebumps when we first heard Balboa say, "It's not about how hard you hit, but how hard you get hit, and keep moving forward", and say it out loud ourselves everytime we saw this scene? As Theodore Roosevelt once said, "Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

I have personally never found a more compelling character who prompts you to try and save the world while the majority is hell bent on destroying it. Inaction and nihilism is the opium of the masses. Every truly inspiring underdog story begins with hope and faith and ends with belief. We cannot give up, not now, not ever. Although victory can never be attained, we the people, must march on.

Therefore, as far as I'm concerned, there is only one way in which a Batman story can end; Wayne in his cape and cowl, standing on a gargoyle, protruding from the tallest tower in Gotham and watching over his city as the 'Batsignal' shines in the sky, for although he is our greatest champion, come tonight, fall again, he must.