Like a reckless act of slasher vandalism, the scattered cards and splattered blood stains on the latest poster for The Dark Knight foretell a violent clash of sinister forces. In spite of the coarse prankster mockery of the scratched graffiti catch-phrases, the poster has an overlay of aged shabbiness that gives it a surprisingly archaic quality. Maybe it’s the vintage harlequin cards and somewhat seedy daguerreotype creepiness casting a frozen fog across Batman’s eyes. Or perhaps the static montage brings to mind the dark geometric neutrality of Braque‘s Cubist portraits or the eerie found-object assemblage shrines of Joseph Cornell. It’s a patchwork effigy reminiscent of the obsessive opening credits of Se7en or a postmodern photocollage by David Hockney. Whatever your own subconscious associations, it looks like the deck is stacked against Batman in this twisted game of 52-Pickup. No surprise that this composite image recalls the shuffling of Polaroid memories and desaturated shades of slight-of-hand trickery that Christopher Nolan made famous in his previous films that don’t involve bats. Even in non-chiroptophobic movies like Memento and The Prestige, the densely layered design of Nolan’s baroque visual sensibilities are all about the shattering of perceptions into fractured shards of disordered illusion.
How does this series of brilliant one-sheets help set the stage for The Dark Knight‘s awards prospects this year? For me they’re a reflection in a splintered mirror of the flamboyant rococo noir universe created by production designer Nathan Crowley (who received an Art Directors Guild nomination for Batman Begins, the year Memoirs of a Geisha won.) Thick with his densely byzantine decor, the most Gothic Gotham City to ever darken the screen superimposes a shadowy flying buttress of menace against the Chicago skyline, and adds immeasurably to Nolan’s wicked vision. If Kevin Smith is right, and The Dark Knight turns out to be The Godfather II of superhero movies, I’ll be ready to root for Crowley to earn his first second Best Production Design nomination this year.
Sucks that you don’t have WALL·E yet. Looks like much of SE Asia will see it in August, but it’s not opening in Japan until Dec 20 (can that be right?)
But I see you already have Hellboy 2 and Wanted.
& Kung Fu Panda.
Sex and the City is in Bangkok, (but, um, stick to the TV series.)
We used to wait years before major movies reached Thailand. Thank the heavens that things have changed and we’re getting worldwide releases the same time as the ‘rest of the world’ are.
As for The Dark Knight, just so happens that new releases are almost always on a Thursday – a day before the weekend starts. That’s for promising new releases. We’ve had some releases come a few days later or even weeks after the US – depending on the film.
Will most likely see it at the Emporium in the heart of this bustling City of Angels.
ha! “quite pissed” indeed. I think she had a neck ache, and probably devilish aches in other places too.
yep, just checked the Bangkok movieseer website, and confirmed what you said (and I’m surprised to hear). You guys are getting The Dark Knight on the 17th. Doesn’t open here till the 18th, (but maybe midnight showings, 12:01 a.m., and all through the night till dawn.
At what theater do you plan to see it, Toy? What part of town?
Linda looking quite pissed is still the all-time scariest movie on earth.
Apichatpong’s refusal to exhibit his film here did not catch that much attention with neither the audience nor the media for the film was not mainstream.
Yes, back to the poster.
“the more scarier it is as its past owner ‘may want it back’.
ha! so funny. It would’ve taken 4 muscly guys to move that bed, I think it had roots in the floor. How many ghosts would it have taken to move it?
(On the other hand, little Linda Blair lifted her bed completely off the floor all by herself.)
I remember Nang Nak was a milestone turning point in Thai cinema. And since then Tony Jaa and Ong Bak came along and wowed the world of stunt-driven action films.
Not to mention world-class directors like Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose Tropical Malady was a gorgeous gay love story. His Syndromes and a Century landed on a lot of critics top 10 lists last year, and was chosen by highfalutin Film Comment critics poll as the #4 movie of 2008.
Sadly though, Khun Apichatpong refused to exhibit Syndromes and a Century in Thailand when the Thai censors board cut 4 scenes. That’s been big news in international cinema circles, but I wonder if Thai media covered it much, Toy — or even if Thai audiences are aware or care. (?)
Likewise, there wasn’t much outcry in America when Warners nearly buried The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and then gave it a weak rollout in theaters. Art films get treated pretty shabbily by studios and ratings boards in every country.
Back to The Dark Knight. Everything we’re hearing says the intensity of the violence has an emotional impact that’s borderline R-rated. So there’s a real double standard and no doubt a lot of fishy corruption going on at the MPAA as well as the Thai censors board.
Nang Nak happens to be the single Thai movie that changed the Thai film industry for the better. Thai film makers have since paid more attention to entertaining us. And sorry, the older the antique, the more scarier it is as its past owner ‘may want it back’.
Hate to remind you, Toy boy. But… Heath Ledger.
(I know a certain Thai guy who refused to sleep in a 110-year-old antique oak bed, because of the ghost vibes.)
Nang Nak (นางนาก), the first Thai ghost story movie I ever saw, and still gives me chills just to think about it. One of the most successful Thai movies ever, right? Grossed more in Thailand than Titanic earned, I think.
To Thais, the poster certainly says it’s a ghost movie/horror movie which Thai audiences love. We’re quite a superstitious kind and are often scared of those damn ghosts. But The Dark Knight, certainly not a ghost, is really gonna creep all of us out here in Bangkok come this 17th.
ha, haroldsmaude (…I had to wiki “chiroptophobia” myself.)
& yes, that will be on the final exam.
Thanks VictorS. Major slip-up. Fixed.
Second nomination!
Crowley was nominated for his amazing work in “The Prestige” in 2006.
“non-chiroptophobic” ? Is that Monday’s word, Ryan? Thanks for sending me to the dictionary.
bithin’ poster indeed!
Wonderful poster. Like you I was thinking Se7en and Hockney, but I love the other echoes you so expertly identified, and how you connect the imagery with Nolan’s vision in earlier films. You have a masterful talent for deconstructing one-sheet aesthetics.
Probably the creepiest poster I’ve seen in a looong time.
Bitchin!
Creepy. I like it.