THE DARK KNIGHT (2008), dir. Christopher Nolan

When Tim Burton’s 1989 “Batman” first came out, audiences were warned: “This isn’t your parents’ Batman,” referring to the campy Adam West television version from the 60’s. Having seen “The Dark Knight,” I think it would be safe to tell fans of Burton’s film the same thing: this isn’t their Batman, but one that’s a lot less gothic, a lot more psychological, and even more violent.

What Christopher Nolan’s movie lacks in production design, it makes up for through intensity. This is one hell of a suspense vehicle, ratcheting up the tension at regular intervals, letting audiences go for a moment, then improbably, raising the stakes even higher. It’s a roller coaster ride that could have been exhausting over the film’s two-hour-plus running time, but thanks to Nolan and co-scripter David Goyer’s emphasis on characters and their relationships, all the plot developments have emotional resonance.

“The Dark Knight” picks up near where “Batman Begins” left off: billionaire heir Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is still the self-appointed guardian of Gotham City, slowly chipping away at the criminal underworld through his alter-ego Batman. His only friend on the police force remains Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman); in the District Attorney’s office, it’s Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, replacing Katie Holmes), his childhood sweetheart who learned his secret identity in the last movie.

A love triangle brews between Wayne, Dawes, and recently-elected District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who seems sincere about crushing criminals and settling down with Bruce’s old flame. But with all due respect to the romantic aspects of the screenplay, the relationship at the heart of this film is that between Dent, Gordon, and Batman, who hatch a plan together to nail the mob on money laundering charges. Naturally, the first meeting of this crime-fighting trio brims with hope and optimism; unfortunately, things don't go as planned, and the next time they’re all together, it’s to reflect on the toll they’ve suffered in the name of the good fight.

Good and evil seem to be at war in “The Dark Knight,” but maybe it’s more like chaos and order. The main villain is a war paint-wearing, facially-scarred, mentally-off-balanced madman who calls himself the Joker (the late Heath Ledger), a self-described “agent of chaos” for whom there’s no applecart he won’t upset or shove through a sharp object, eye socket first. The filmmakers wisely adhere to his comics’ origin and withhold explaining how he got the way he does. Chaos, after all, needs no motivation; as one character wisely explains, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

By contrast, Dent not only represents “law and order,” his life appears built on the idea human will can successfully impose itself on chaos. Even when we think he’s starting to slip up, he’s in total control, “making his own luck,” as he says, seemingly confident of determining his own fate. However, one of the movie’s recurring themes is how short a jump there is between two halves of the same coin: order and chaos, hero and villain, and ultimately, life and death. When order meets chaos head-to-head, the movie argues, even the best of us can lose our way or become walking contradictions -- “two-faced” people.

In some ways, Nolan is a “two-face” himself, dressing up a summer blockbuster into something artier and genuinely disquieting at times. “The Dark Knight” probably features a higher body count than half-a-dozen serial killer movies combined, but despite lots of action sequences, it’s practically anti-violence due to presentation: during particular stretches of carnage, Nolan either cuts off the background music entirely or reduces it to a single, extended note, which somehow makes everything just a little too involving. When there’s nothing distracting you from the sight of the Joker walking down the street, firing a machine gun at anything that moves, that’s when the movie really pulls you out of your orderly viewing experience and puts you in a stranglehold.

Updated 8/3/08: Following the movie’s release, there were numerous articles regarding its supposed politics, with writers claiming references to the Iraq War, suicide bombers, and the Patriot Act. I can kind of see it: in theory, the triumvirate of Batman, Dent, and Lt. Gordon are standing in for the current administration, finding themselves dealing with a firestorm of reprisal after entering a foreign land in the name of justice. Gotham City becomes the battleground, but the problem is enemy soldiers are able to hide themselves in plain sight; for example, the Joker himself – minus his trademark make-up, of course – blends in with a procession of cops during an assassination attempt.

Meanwhile, is that “shock and awe” echoing in Alfred Pennyworth’s (Michael Caine) tale to Bruce Wayne about his past army days, how his unit managed to catch a madman among the natives, only by burning down an entire forest in which he lived? In order to avoid the same, Batman plans to spy on the cell phone calls of Gotham City’s citizenry using a hi-tech computer. One can practically hear him blubbering to Morgan Freeman how this potential breach of civil liberties is, “the only way to stop terror,” in a Texas accent.

The funny thing is the filmmakers seem okay with this encroachment, so long as the ends justify the means (a psycho gets brought down, innocent lives are saved), and there is no abuse of this power. And despite the temptation to keep around such an elaborate spying network – imagine how much easier it would make fighting crime – we assume Batman realizes the ethical implications of such a thing. At the very least, it would reveal a pessimistic view of human nature to rival the Joker and his other enemies. But although we can trust Batman not to abuse such invasive technology, the question the whole subplot seems to raise is: do we feel the same way about the current administration, or does the Dark Knight really symbolize something we don’t have, and are in need of?

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

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SECRETARY (2002), dir. Steven Shainberg

Not So Naughty, Not So Nice

Life occasionally gets too stressful for Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal). To cope, she cuts herself using any of an assortment of tools and sharp objects kept in a sewing box in her bedroom. We infer that Lee hasn’t had access to the box for a while, since, when we first meet her, she is being released from a mental institution. In voiceovers, she reflects on her time there positively (which makes us suspect that she didn’t get the help she actually needed). She had a routine, somebody else making the decisions for her. Sitting on a bench outside, waiting for her mother (Leslie Ann Warren) to pick her up, Lee seems quite ambivalent towards her newly-acquired freedom.

A quick trip home for her sister’s wedding sends her running for the sewing kit again. Her father (Stephen McHattie) is an alcoholic, the kind who promises not to drink, then quickly forgets those promises because he’s too drunk to remember them. Her mother busies herself with party guests, more or less forgetting about Lee. Only an old high school friend, Peter, keeps her company. Lee refrains from cutting herself that day, but later, she overhears her father slapping her mother around in a drunken rage. Lee runs to the kitchen, grabs a pot of boiling water off the stove. She doesn't hit her father with it. Instead, she presses the hot metal against the inside of her leg. The flesh sizzles, but Lee is so used to self-inflicted pain she doesn’t even cry out.

The next few weeks, she continues to adjust to life outside the institute. She goes to community college to learn typing. Her subsequent job search lands her in the office of E. Edward Grey (Spader), a lawyer who goes through assistants so regularly, there's a "Secretary Wanted" sign on the lawn surrounded by light bulbs. It resembles the signs motels frequently turn on and off to denote vacancies.

When Edward first meets Lee, there is a look in his eyes like a drowning man spotting a life preserver. An utter taskmaster, Edward constantly struggles to control his temper in the face of imperfect assistants. When Lee enters his life, he dumps all the red pens on his desk into the wastebasket. They have been his weapon of choice for so long. But Edward sees the chance for a clean slate in this new secretary, a chance to prove he can change his dominating ways once and for all.

During the next few weeks, Edward vacillates between ignoring Lee completely, and browbeating her mercilessly. But after a particularly stormy session, he spots her toying with the infamous sewing box. Edward asks about the box, learns its nature, then commands Lee never to cut herself again. At this point, Edward begins co-opting Lee's mind. He gives her strength through his own force of will--something Lee might not object to, given how much more comfortable she was when the institute regimented her existence.

But the taking over of Lee's mind leads to the conquest of her body, when Edward directs her to bend over his desk and begins spanking her. However, instead of enraging Lee, or shaming her the way his verbal abuse did, the act leaves her euphoric. Returning to her desk, her face takes on a look of supreme happiness. So begins the main thrust of the film, where Lee submits to an ever-increasing litany of strange acts, including wearing a saddle while holding a carrot in her mouth, or putting her arms through a stock so they are suspended level to her shoulders. In the process, her feelings for Edward blossom into genuine love.

Though it may sound like misogynist fantasy, "Secretary" is actually an emotionally-moving, well-acted drama about soul mates who find each other. What keeps it from teetering into misogyny is how Edward and Lee's relationship never feels like slavery. He never coerces her into doing anything. On the contrary, Lee chooses to engage in these activities. There’s a sweetness here; like the cliched office lovers, they struggle to focus on their work while constantly thinking about the other. The only difference with Lee and Edward is, in their case, there’s more saddle-wearing, and less penetration.

The movie is also unmisogynistic because it doesn't detail a woman falling into shame. On the contrary, Lee conquers the stigma of her urges, then tries to convince the man she loves not to be ashamed of wanting to dominate his secretary. Naturally, he is slow to respond. Edward's overwhelming shame could derive from past experiences with women who weren’t keen on, or were repulsed by, the idea of being submissive. Edward’s ex-wife, whom we meet briefly, quickly sizes up Lee as just the opposite. Was Edward married to a woman who understood too well how his mind worked, and sought to "cure" him of his "problem?" Lee is just the opposite; not only doesn’t she feel ashamed wearing a stock for Edward, she receives great pleasure from being under his power.

Lest we think all the power belongs to Edward, one should point out that, in performing these acts for the man she loves, who also happens to be her boss, Lee unwittingly diminishes Edward’s authority, and brings them both closer to the realm of equals. Conceivably, she decides on how often they canoodle, since her typing errors precipitate his having to "discipline" her. When Edward isn’t giving Lee the attention she needs, she has to fake her own incompetence in order to provide him errors to find. At one point, he still isn’t giving her the attention she needs, so she folds a worm into a memo, and stuffs it into an envelope. This is not the kind of thing an employee normally can do to a boss. We must conclude, therefore, that their relationship exists in some kind of limbo between "boss" and "employee," on a level with more equal footing.

Also, after Edward performs a particularly unspeakable act on Lee’s bare rear end, he tapes a memo to her back, which she discovers in the bathroom. While performing an unspeakable act on someone, then taping a note of their most recent typographic errors to their back, could be construed as degrading them, Lee’s heart is overwhelmed with passion by Edward's gesture. Edward, meanwhile, finds a spot on his tie, the result of their activity. He becomes disgusted. Ironically, though Lee allows Edward to satisfy his unusual sexual needs with her body, and seemingly submits herself to what many women might consider lewd acts, only one participant is becoming empowered by these entanglements, and it is Lee, not Edward.

Watching this movie, I couldn’t help thinking of the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast," where the downy young innocent falls in love with a man whom, by all outward appearances, is a horrible monster. "Secretary" is a lot like that. Beneath the film’s edgy, almost unpleasant-sounding veneer—this Belle has an addiction to self-mutilation, and the Beast is James Spader playing the kind of role James Spader specializes in—"Secretary" is really a fuzzy-hearted love story. The monster here is more beastly in his behavior than physical appearance. But the theme of seeing the humanity within remains.

Finding the humanity inside E. Edward Gray is a lot easier, thanks to the excellent casting. Maggie Gyllenhaal has the perfect girl-next-door looks for the role of Lee. She is believable as the shy and snivelling secretary. Later, her bright face and expressive features convey the strength and resolve her character finds. Her body posture also evolves, starting out small and downcast, ending up graceful and upright.

After Steven Soderbergh’s "sex, lies, & videotape (1989)," and David Cronenberg’s "Crash (1996)," Spader is probably the first name most writers, producers, or directors think of when casting a character with odd sexual fetishes. But he is also a solid leading man, and does his best work in a while here. Also worth noting is Stephen McHattie, terrific as Mr. Holloway. He only appears in a few scenes, but his sketched-out journey from souse to sobriety reflects the distances Lee travels as well. Lee’s sewing box is her coping mechanism, just as the bottle is Mr. Holloway's. When the crutches they are used to leaning on get taken out from under them, both Holloways are forced to confront their own natures. In the process, they emerge as stronger, better people.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)