Batman movie and a real superhero's life

[rose_griffes]

So. Batman. Didn't love it, so if you did love it, you might want to stop reading now.

I liked the first Batman movie with Christian Bale. The second movie felt like one and a half movies crammed into one, and as much as I admire Heath Ledger's performance, the Joker was... hrm. I felt absolutely no connection to him, no common human bond. Frankly I would rather have campy than unmitigated, unrelatable evil.

And the third movie... so very dark. Bane was another unrelatable villain for me. His voice made me cringe a bit--it just didn't really fit--and his face was so hidden that it made it difficult to know him at all, until the end when Tom Hardy cries all pretty for Miranda/Talia.

As for Bruce Wayne/Batman, I think chaila said it best when she pointed out that there was a literal cell of manpain for him. Also, ugh, I had to look away during some of the Batman-Bane fight scenes.

What I did like: Anne Hathaway did a terrific job with the role of Selina Kyle/Catwoman. In particular, her quick turns from faking a cringing female victim to confident thief; those moments were some of the most watchable of the movie. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake (Robin John Blake? John Robin Blake? John Blake Robin) made up for a lot of the teary-eyed Bale angst. I would love to have watched the Catwoman and Blake show. They could be reluctant allies fighting crime in a dystopian Gotham City.

Mostly not related to the above, Joseph Gordon-Levitt grew up into an attractive man, and I still can't quite process that...

eta: selenak pointed out some of the other aspects I found problematic (but was unable to put into words) here.


I've been reading and re-reading some books. But I want to talk about Daughter of Persia, which I read earlier this summer. It's a memoir by Sattareh Farman Farmaian, who was a pioneer for social work in her home country, Iran. Her childhood--being raised as one of many children of her father's four wives--was drastically different from mine, of course. She left Iran in her early twenties (her exact age was hard to establish due to the lack of birth records) to study in the US, so through her narration I saw my home country as an absolutely foreign place. So all of that was interesting and funny and heartbreaking at times.

Eventually Farmaian works to return home and start a school of social work, and the narration turns from something of a cultural study to a tightrope walk as the US and the UK make Iran their playground, so to speak, in a game of political maneuvering and power. And for a woman in a position of authority, the tightrope was even more narrow and unstable.

So I'd recommend it. I don't generally enjoy memoirs much, but this one was fascinating.

Farmaian died in May this year. Her obituary listed her as ninety.

Comments

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

I remember reading that book many years ago (and re-reading it, because you're right, it's FASCINATING). I didn't realize she'd died. i'll have to get hold of the book again, because you're making me want to give it another read.