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joker | 2019



Is Joaquin Phoenix's performance of the Joker worth an Oscar nomination? Yes. Ok, but, besides that, why is everybody so hyped by this film? Because we've seen a movie with plenty of superheroes hit the box office this year and now, six months later, just one man, a villain, is stealing the whole show. The one thing that hyped me the most was reading, when the movie premiered at the Venice Film Festival back in September, that this movie didn't have special effects, that it was organic.  

I know, I'm not going to say anything you've already read on any film magazine or twitter, instagram or your friends may have commented but I needed to post this. 

Joker is a movie that is undoubtedly influenced by Scorsese's films, such as Taxi Driver (1976) and presents a Gotham that reminds us of the 1970's New York. One of the things I liked the most is the contextualisation of the action, because it helped to understand and empathize with Arthur Fleck, the Joker. The colour palette changed as the film was progressing and the character was "mutating" into that villain. 

Despite knowing that he is the villain of the comics and that the superhero in this stories is Batman, I think that the director, Todd Phillips, found a way to make people empathize with the Joker. But it wasn't a conventional way. The abuses of his childhood and the lies Arthur Fleck has been told his whole life, and the fact that he has a mental illness (or more) are just the way of reflecting the chaos of those that society considers that are a failure. The Joker is a product from the chaos, from the rationality inside the irrationality; he knows what he does, yet it is the only way he can see that life makes sense, because nobody cares about him and he sees how everyone  despises him. And that is what Joaquin Phoenix captures and transmits in his performance. 

There are many memorable scenes in the film, the bathroom scene is one of my favourites, but also the scene where he dances on the stairs of his apartment.

The only thing I missed in the film, though it is not necessarily needed because an image is worth a hundred words, is more dialogue and more talk from the Joker.

One of the movies of the year, for sure, that makes you think.



An alternative poster of the Joker. 

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