In films centered around superheros, the good prevails against the bad. The distinction is clear: there's the hero, the rolemodel, the upstanding figure of society that fights for what is right. You have an overwhelming feeling of hope as you watch, no matter how intense the most critical fighting scene gets between the vigilante and his opponent. The city is forever saved, civilians are eternally grateful in awe.
In Tim Burton's Batman, however, I can't necessarily say that this is so. And I wouldn't want to. Burton delves much deeper into the human psyche; beyond what is "right" and "wrong." The exaggerated characters we see in this film shock us because, somehow, we have seen them before. Both Batman and the Joker's internal conflicts that drive their morals, motives, and actions throughout the film are not unlike personalities you or I have, or will, come across at some point in life. Burton embraces their imperfect personalities and morphs them into powerful symbols of not just imperfection, but raw disorders in their most personified sense. The sad, corrupted, uncomfortable, cluttered, monotone Gotham City we see does not greatly contrast to other notorious cities we can picture across the country. Tim Burton manipulates both the characters and their surroundings in order to attain a true image of claustrophobia. Gotham City is a prison forever stuck inside itself, as are the Joker and Batman.
Batman's struggle against himself is apparent from the beginning as he doesn't introduce himself when Vicki Vale asks him where Bruce Wayne is. He has two concrete identities, Batman, and Bruce Wayne, and even still, can't seem to completely or confidently dedicate himself to either. He truly lives in the dark, cramped, intimidating shadows of himself as a result of his tragic loss of his parents when he was young.
The Joker, on the other hand, struggles to function properly in society as a trickster. He operates, manipulates, and benefits as a result of Gotham's corrupt politics, and permeating societal greed. He gives darkly comedic homage to the city in several scenes as he dresses up as a mime, mocking politicians outside, he parades around the city for short-lived, greed-driven excitement that ends fatally, he poisons the city using their most unlikely security blanket: makeup, to further underscore the twisted values that make up Gotham City's identity. But despite all this, he needs someone to control him; to give him a motive. Batman, in this sense proves to do just that. And for Batman, a similar statement can be made. As the two chase one another up throughout the castle for a good duration of the end of the film, their boiling points have peaked. Their senses of claustrophobia clash.
To simply put it, I don't think any director could have engaged me so psychologically in a comic-book based film, other than Mr. Burton.
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