The Doctor and the Bat

From three storeys high I saw a young woman from the back all in black, holding a dark umbrella in the sun, and a little red purse level with her ears, arm bent like a rabbit's paw. She was walking quick by the stream near my apartment.

I'd never seen someone so uniquely styled in my little gu. There are no universities, no galleries, no kitsch cafes or bars where I am. I've never actually seen someone so uniquely styled in the whole of Yongin. Curious.

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Was told I look like David Tennant aka Doctor Who at the weekend.

That's very hot.

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BATMAN - a soju/noraebang place in 강남 Gangnam I really want to go to. But something tells me it's never open anymore. Have to love that Schumacher/Schwarzenegger logo.

Various new thoughts on The Dark Knight -

* Duality - both Batman and Joker go to extreme methods to capture Lau, the corrupt Hong Kong businessman.

* Technology and terror - compare the flashing light meltdown in the Hong Kong scene when Batman infiltrates the tower, and the flashing light meltdown when the ferries are taken over by the Joker.

* Obvious but I only noticed recently how while Batman takes away Harvey Dent's gun during the scene after Gordon's 'death', the Joker later gives Dent a gun when spurring him on in the queasy hospital scene.

* Maybe Batman can never kill or let the Joker die because otherwise Rachel really would have died for nothing. Remember how she chided Bruce in Batman Begins when learning of his plan to kill Joe Chill.

*Speaking of BB, the scene where Bruce blames himself over Dawes' death to Alfred is an exact mirror of the young Bruce blaming himself over his parents' death to Alfred in the first film.

* The end of the film very cleverly manages to vindicate all 3 of the Gotham trinity. Somehow Batman, Joker and Two Face are all right about existence. It's all about control, chaos and chance.

As Two Face argues, everything really is up to chance. At the climax, Two Face believes the only options are Gordon's son dies, or he lives. He doesn't bank on the chance though of Batman mustering the strength to tackle him off the building edge. That really is pure chance.

Batman saving the boy manages to also prove that chaos, the chaos unleashed by the Joker through Dent, can be controlled, that there is a point to him being the Batman. He has also been proven right, and you can have rules in this world. You can maintain order and save lives.

But yet the Joker also wins because of chaos, seeing as Batman has now killed in the line of duty, however unwittingly. And in a way, when tackling Dent, Batman became an angel of chaos, blowing apart Two Face's stranglehold on reality - black and white, live or die, control of the coin.



Further reading -

Chaos theory and the Dark Knight

Joker and Iago

Joker and the moral depravity of man