Of Masks and Men

Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker is definitely the film worth watching and even more so -- worth pondering about.

From the narrative perspective, it is rather trite and secondary. So we have a guy who is traumatized by life and harbors endless amounts of resentment. Life treats him harshly, while the rich, the powerful, and the successful, don't really give a damn about anything, his misery in particular. Fine. Important and relevant as this subject is for the current state of affairs --we've seen this before. Vigilante motive is equally unoriginal. So is the class resentments that explode as the film progresses.

But one aspect of the film I found truly haunting and memorable. It is the disfiguration of the human face. Human face, the image of God, which is given to all of us, and which we have to cleanse and protect from all sorts of evil passions, is slowly turning into an ugly mask, as the film unfolds.

First the protagonist just wears his mask for his job. But eventually the mask sticks. It takes over and merges with his face. The Joker might have been born, but a human being dies.

It is the tribute to the actor, Joaquin Phoenix, that he pulls it through. He does have an amazing face: intelligent, weathered, masculine yet vulnerable, and then he loses it all.

In contrast to him, the rest of the characters never had much of a face. They are just phonies, bullies, or inadvertent crooks. Cartoon characters, in short. But the main protagonist -- maybe not on the level of the narrative - -but purely on the visual level - -shows the tragedy of a three dimensional complex character, beaten into a two-dimensional comics' figure. Oh, God! Save us from such a fate!