Movie reviews

JOKER

Recommended. The film carries a number of pop culture references, I'm not sure if all were intended or whether some were subconscious inspirations. Whichever it is, the movie's rich in meanings. The protagonist lives in a city where waste hasn't been collected in several days. Also porn theatres keep reappearing throughout the film. Both produce the impression of trash. At one point he says, if he died, "they'd walk over him". That's also a comment on our reality where murders of the rich and powerful are widely publicised and those of the poor don't get a mention in the media. The hint I'm not sure about whether intentional or not, was at Michael Jackson - Joker has a whitened face, as if wearing a mask, similar hair, voice, laughter and he dances. Another trope is "V for Vendetta" - that's obvious from the number of people wearing clown masks in the street. His hallucinations and growing insanity leading to violence resembles "The Voices". His romantic relationship with his neighbour is questionable too. The story puts you right inside the mind of a mentally ill person. And his mother's infatuation with television and adoration of celebrities is reminiscent of "Requiem for a Dream".
The movie makes use of visual means painstakingly too, e.g. when blood on his white face is set against a nearly-white wall and it's only later you can see it on his body as well.
But it's the music by Hildur Guðnadóttir which forms the basis of the movie. It wouldn't have the gravity otherwise. Oscar for the music, please! The sombre tones match the film palette. The music turns joyful four times: he dances on the stairs to the melody of "Hey Song" from "Dr. Who" (I saw some "Dr." on the road side too) who was a positive hero, mind it, next when he appears on TV, again when he joins the street rebellion and finally in hospital -  all instances after Arthur Fleck's transformation into the Joker.
Arthur's identity is uncertain: he might be Thomas Wayne's son, just Penny Fleck's son with an unknown father - in both cases possibly inheriting the mental disease after his mother - or adopted - we don't know who after, especially that a mentally disturbed person was allowed to adopt him. This uncertainty of both fatherhood and motherhood makes him a man from nowhere hence a ready-made symbol too because he could be anyone.
A significant scene places the story as a prequel to the series. We see the beginning of Batman's story but it's not Arthur who kills the boy's parents hence it's not him Bruce Wayne is going to fight but a Joker as a symbol of crime.