Some people treat movies like connoisseurs treat food. They place value on cinematography, the score, the acting, the screenplay and the underlying themes as though they were a complex flavors in a dish being served up at a five star restaurant, and aren't worth digesting unless they're the perfect blend of sophisticated tastes. I'm not one of those people. I LOVE movies, but I will gladly take a substandard "fast food" movie that's cheap and unremarkable, but delicious in its own way. However, I can and do appreciate the movies that can be picked apart like a book, that make me think, that prove to me that films are indeed a form of literature.
Enter Batman Begins.
Yeah, I'm behind the times. I get that this was nearly six years ago and has already been far overshadowed by The Dark Knight. I don't care. I'm blogging about this one right now.
You start out with Bruce Wayne falling into a well that is inexplicably full of bats. (Sure, a bit of a stretch, but it gets the point across.) Right into his adulthood, he's still scared of the things. So he decides to become Batman, BECAUSE he's frightened of bats. He overcomes a fear in order to strike fear into the hearts of criminals. Conveniently enough, crime and corruption are conquering Gotham City (of course... has Gotham ever been a happy place?) and if it weren't for Batman, it would destroy the city completely. So why do the citizens allow it to prevail? Fear. Fear for their families. Fear for their jobs. Fear for their money. It's always something. After all, like the mobster leader Falcone says, "I wouldn't have a second's hesitation of blowing your head of right now and right here... Now that's power you can't buy! That's the power of fear." Fear is dominating Gotham long before the climax of the movie, when the main villain, Ra's Al Ghul, releases a hallucinogen-laced gas into the air to induce-- what else?-- fear. The hallucinations cause the citizens of Gotham to perceive nearly everything they see as something out of their very worst nightmares. Ironically, it's one of the villains that gives away the whole point, revealing that this isn't just a superhero story: "There is nothing to fear but fear itself."
No one was in any real danger, not at first. They were simply allowing their own fear to possess them, to conquer them from within and ultimately destroy them. Of course it's Batman, the one who has overcome his fear, who is able to save the city.
Happy coincidence or awesome writing and directing? I'm gonna go with the second one. I love it.
And it's relevant because fear possesses people in the real world. Not in such a heavy physical hallucination-gas type way, but in a very real way nonetheless. Fear keeps us from following our dreams, from going that extra mile, from being ourselves, from sharing the Gospel, from trying anything at all. But really, what is there to lose? If friends are going to ditch you, they weren't truly your friends. If your dream doesn't work out, it wasn't meant to be and something better's coming. So why not go for it? Why let fear hold you back?
There's nothing to fear but fear itself.
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