I went and saw the Dark Knight again. This time I went with my parents. My mom is a pretty devout woman with a decent artistic sensibility. Afterward she was still trying to process the experience, and it was good to get her take on things.
One thing she said that struck me: “Everyone says it’s lots darker than Batman Begins. I hate that. It’s not dark, it’s sadistic.”
In one sense, she’s right. It is sadistic. But the sense in which she’s right is incomplete. The Joker is sadistic, not the film. He is a twisted sadist whose mere presence should have given the film an R rating. But the film doesn’t glorify that evil, it exposes it. It presents a glimmer of hope and a dash of martyrdom in the face of such evil.