'Joker'... no joke!!

‘Joker’.....no joke!

Hiya people!

How are the Deepawali preps going on?

Ab is samay toh aur koi baat karna criminal offence lagta hai, nia kya?

But what to do mah sweeties, movies consistently barge the screens and unhein dekhna apna dharm hai, hai naa?! :)

Ab yadi dekheinge, toh obviously it will affect us, aur koi naa koi pratikriya hona avashyambhavi hai, hai ki nahi?! :)

Aur fir jab pratikriya hogi, dimaag mein chahal pahal hogi, toh us bare mein baat karne ki icchchha hona bhi waajib hai, bolo hai ki nahi?! :)

Toh ab jab mere saare sawaalon ke jawaab aapke ‘haan’ mein hain, toh lets begin.

This movie that I am talking about now, is the other extreme of the spectrum vis-à-vis what we have been doing in the past.

‘Joker!!’

The dictionary says,

‘Joker is a person whose words or actions provoke or are intended to provoke amusement or laughter!’

but what we’ll be talking about hence is far from this, yes all of what will follow is going to be anything but amusement. Mirthless laughter mostly, sad chuckles maybe, but no happy laugh.

World-cat [a catalogue of libraries in 170 countries] records no less than 250 productions featuring the Joker as a subject, including films, television series, books and video games. Lo bolo bhala, >250!!!

Not to forget our own Bollywood 1970, Raj Kapoor flick, ‘Mera Naam Joker’ with a huge run time of >4 hrs !!!

As also an inconsequential 2012 Akshay Kumar starrer Joker.

In the present premise lets concentrate on the movie we talk about today, 2019 ie.

The Joker has been portrayed by

Cesar Romero in the 1966 film, Batman,

Jack Nicholson in the 1989 film Batman,

Heath Ledger in 2008 The Dark Knight,

Jared Leto in the 2016 film Suicide squad,

And finally……..

Jaoquin Phoenix in the 2019, the solo origin story film with the central character, Joker!!

Till now no other movie featured Joker this way.

While sitting in the theatre as the movie started, the joker that I expected to find was the archenemy of Batman, a ruthless hard core dark criminal mastermind, a continuation of The Dark Knight maybe.

I never knew then; I was in for a shock.

I hadn’t even expected a coherent storyline.

But what I was faced with was far from spooky or scary.

The movie begins.

What meets us is a nearly emaciated Joker [Phoenix lost all of 24 kgs for the movie]

In 1981 there lived this ‘Joker’ in Gotham City Arthur Fleck, trying to make ends meet as a party clown entertaining the children in a hospital and loving his work, loving the children. He aspires to become a stand up comedian and is working on it learning by observing famous people in the field. In the family front, he lives with his old physically debilitated mother who he takes care with love, compassion and sincerity. That’s all he apparently has.

Its here that the problem starts. He suffers from pseudo-bulbar affect, a neurological condition where one looses control of one’s emotions like happiness, sorrow, frustration and……. anger. That’s quite a handful to handle. He takes seven medications for the same and his treatment is funded by the social service organizations.

As if dealing with all this wasn’t enough, amidst of riots and chaos, the funding is stopped.

Randall his friend lied about the gun and he even lost his one job that he had and loved.

Arthur tried to the best of his abilities to make the least bad of all that destiny had thrown into him, no job, no meds, a health condition totally beyond his comprehension and control.

His sole ambition of being a stand up comedian and liked by people, for which he worked hard upon; was the worst.

This nervous human equipped with all the home work he could, carrying his tattered notes stands behind the mike, facing the prejudiced audience that he had not just to please, but to make them….. Laugh.  

To add insult to injury, as he starts his self mocking joke, he is consumed in a fit of laughter; mirthless laugh, completely unbridled, incessant. We feel his struggle as he closes his arms around his face so as to stop it, but in vain.

The torturous moments finally pass and he completes his joke. This faux-pas wouldn’t have done much harm had Murray Franklin not used it to make complete fun of Fleck.

Unexpectedly the step boomeranged on him when this video clip is universally loved by the people, forcing Murray to invite Fleck to his hugely popular talk show.

Arthur has no friends, nearly none to call his family either. But through the whole movie we the audience, could feel what he felt.

His sinewy, bony, caricatured body breaks daintily into a dance with intricate, perfect and fluid steps and grips us, the audience, into its aura. The bony prominences throwing strange shadows that should have looked grotesque, give an artistic punctuation to the whole phenomenon. The melancholia, the sadness yet his will to go on, reaches us directly inside our ribcage hitting our beating hearts.

During the film, this dance changes subtly in mannerisms according to his state of mind then.

The final dance as he is decked up in Red about to go to the talk show in the high stairs was the best. For once there was exhilaration, hope and happiness, but not depicted by words or expressions – he had his face completely painted as a ‘Joker’, lips in a smile while eye make up running down with a tear. All of it came out loud and clear only by his….Dance.

This neurological condition of his was utterly ruthless and unforgiving. It started as a bout of Kookaburra laughs in a train cubicle with three drunk Wall-street guys who obviously unknowing of his helplessness nor the reason of his laugh, bully him mercilessly taking advantage of his frail, very frail frame. As a last ditch effort at saving himself, Fleck guns them down.

This was done as a reflex but it didn’t deter or affect him with as much feel-bad feeling or remorse as his mind must have calculated and it gave him a way out to get back at people who troubled and insulted him.

He kills Randall but spares Gary as he had been good to him in the past, even opening the door for him to pass over Randall’s dilapidated body. He is scared to core on the inside even while he is committing heinous murders.

His mother has told him a false story of his father being the Mayor Thomas Wayne. Again this person doesn’t want any hierarchy or money or name nor fame from this very rich and famous father of his but just a little warmth and psychological support…maybe just a loving reassuring hug. He was denied even that and he finds Wayne calling lesser scales of society as ‘Clowns’.

He has a scuffle with Alfred and we get a tiny view of Bruce Wayne- our Batman as a child when Arthur goes to meet his ‘Father’ Thomas.

But he is in for a shock when he is told that Thomas Wayne is not his biological father and his mother was a delusional worker in the Wayne household who had adopted him. Wayne on the other hand to save his reputation tortured and abused the mom-son duo back then. This was apparently the reason that caused this neurological condition that he faced now.

He is shattered and kills his own mother for deceiving him, landing him into the bizarre situation that he is in.

He kills as a reflex then on, not withstanding what he was actually doing. All he knew was, that was the way out for him to get back at the people, society and scenario…..to survive.

Joker in Heath Ledger of The Dark Knight - D.C. Extended Universe, was a psycho, ruthless, powerful coldblooded monster. He was taking out at the society for no reason at all.

Joker in Fleck was as a total contrast, timid, scared, faltering and utterly helpless getting back at the society unassuming and as a survival instinct who wanted nothing else but to live in peace but the society wouldn’t even allow that.

Both committed similar crimes but with absolutely nothing else in common.

Joker – 2K19 had a herculean effort behind it. Phoenix emerged triumphant with his superlative performance.

And what we as a society can learn from this brilliant movie is just to be a tad bit more empathetic towards our fellow humans. Every thought, word or deed can have enormous, unexpected and sometimes unwanted repercussions on others around us, some even those who mean well for us and those, that we Love.

So people gear up and watch the movie, again if you have already seen it; with my eyes this time and celebrate Cinema that percolates deep inside of us.

Do not forget to let me know how you feel.

Till then, its again Bye-bye, Tata and Take care from me here at Page-3. :)