The first time I saw “Joker,” I was participating in the Venice Film Festival five years ago, and I was aggrieved and infuriated by its content, I quite emotionally felt the need to voice this out as some reviews I later learned were a bit rushed. (I would later learn that there was no reason to be in such a hurry as there was an embargo on reviews of the movie for five hours even after I filed my notice). Therefore, in order not to spoil the enjoyment for the audience, I described the scene that offended me the most.
What I remember, however, is the way the film ended, wherein Arthur Fleck portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix looks fully transformed into the Joker as he participates in a late-night talk show hosted by the ironical Murray Franklin (played by Robert de Niro) who only intends to humor the audience with Arthur’s make up. But in the end, Franklin’s intention is to mock the man made up as a clown for the makeup Arthur wears. Well, it turns out that Arthur will have the last laugh after all as he quickly draws out a pistol gripping it in his hand, and shoots Murray Franklin’s brains out on the screen.
That struck me in a bad way. Part of the reason is that I was rather sure that this plot point drew inspiration from the 1987 on-air suicide of Pennsylvania political figure R. Budd Dwyer. There was a brutal footage of him blowing his own brains out that had been omitted from television reports, but I was then pretty knowledgeable about the industry which enabled me to view the unedited version of that footage. And sometimes I wish I hadn’t. The parallels given by the event in real life and what director Todd Philips crafted appeared too specific to be just happenstance. I thought what Phillips and Phoenix (and, yes, of course, De Niro) have done was disgustingly opportunistic nihilism.
So there you have it, in case you were waiting to hear it. I wrote in my review: “‘dark’ is a different flavour in the context of today’s mainstream films. It’s another tool in the toolbox of any creative that decides on their target market. And for instance, in comic books, it is useful,” I said.
And here I am once again, continuing the beat to the Joker’s tune, this time with the sequel titled, Joker: Folie a deux which, as we all have been hearing on the various platforms, is a musical that has again been written and directed by Todd Phillips. Thankfully, Phillips didn’t write the songs. In simple terms, this is a Jukebox musical containing such songs as ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’ from The Great American Songbook or pop songs from the 60s such as ‘To Love Somebody’ originally by The Bee Gees and made even more popular by Janis Joplin and many more. And the best thing that I can say about it is that it definitely hasn’t been built with considering marketing in the traditional way.
Prior to evaluating the best reason why the second part of the “Joker” should be made into a musical, it is important to say that this rationale has some merit. That is, one Arthur Fleck who here does not make any wide comparisons between himself as a man in the street and himself as a “Joker” is a deranged guy who possibly envisions his life to be that of someone possibly living inside a stage. Hence, we may award the filmmakers the benefit of dthe oubt in being good by presenting the story as a musical. It also helps them escape from other otherwise desperate situations. This film is narratively, psychologically, and aesthetically blind. Nonetheless, it can slide into the first two categories because musicals get away with being narratively and psychologically insane just by the nature of them being, well, musicals.
As it constantly reiterates, the action takes place in the combined portions of time immediately following the horrific murder that ended ‘Joker.’ Arthur/the Joker is incarcerated in one of the dark, gothic, industrial-style asylums to be found in Arkham, and during one of his walks to see a patient, he is almost flirted at by a young lady standing in an open room and singing something. It’s Lady Gaga’s Lee Quinzel (a pet peeve of DC fans, but she never goes crazy with the Harley Quinn thing in this), and the two of them get worried about how much of each other they can exchange before July’s the trial, which moderately has Lee mysteriously conferred with American citizenship to watch the trial. (This is explained to a fair degree, although not convincingly). When Arthur isn’t wearing his Joker make-up, the man is a sullen and sarcastic figure but, fear not, he gets to wear it many times, whether it be in musical daydreams or the actual day of the court case. And then he goes, well, ‘Joker’.
This apparently unending film focuses on the trial and the romance and these two plot lines are certainly the core of its narrative. There are some highlights such as, for example, Joker’s depiction of the typical Southern lawyer and the right accent and tone that such a character should have, but they have been placed in what appears to be the eighth or ninth hour of the movie.
So, in conclusion, the wafer-smooth narrative is precisely the same disgusting mess that Phillips had previously managed to prepare in the first movie entitled ¨The Joker,¨ only that now it has been transformed, at least in part, into a different genre.
Some reviewers have already pointed out that this particular film does not have a lot to offer in terms of what can be considered as ‘Joker guarantees’. At this juncture, I cannot help but chuckle. I appreciate the fact that this figure is simply an invention of a crazy world, which is quite thankless and a cult figure in every sense. But then, does it make sense to talk about “Joker fan service”? Rather, should we discuss “Charles Manson” fan service? There is definitely something sick and also deeply disturbing about the world we inhabit.
Other than its apathy towards the cinematic experience of its potential audience, the only other point of the film I can praise is that of performance. Gaga and Phoenix did evidently put in effort in developing and portraying their respective characters and in their interactions. In performance for example, the singers are engaged in performing their ‘real lives’ where they may be work-in-progress and presently – participating in their joint visionary ambitions, professionally hardcore singing. While Gaga is invested pretty well throughout the movie, Phoenix’s skill ultimately turns into self-indulgent vanity (his so-called ‘dance’ as the Joker is more about relaxing muscles before yoga poses). But still, it is all virtuosity, for however much it is worth it.
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