TIFF 2019 Review: JOKER is too shallow to be provocative



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Todd Phillips wants to annoy us. His new film Joker, a gun job on behalf of Cinematic Universe DC that has turned into an inflection of the author in the center of the studio, seeks to shock by glorifying a screaming and enraged cynicism embodied in a certain Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix, avenged salient bone). It is a man who has finally had enough and who decides to remedy the situation by raging violently with a considerable number of bodies. He commits shocking and heinous acts, and the film adds a cathartic touch to his behavior in order to shock the public. All the children of the world – indifferent politicians, wicked celebrities, absent fathers, all confused in the feverish spirit of Fleck – get what they deserve, to paraphrase the antihero. The villain we all know as the Joker may be a villain, but what does it mean to be "bad", really?

Judging by all the Scorsian perversions of the themes of alienation and illusion in Taxi driver and The king of comedyPhillips would like to start one of those discussions about representation versus approval that tends to be suspended, like an albatross, at Marty's best work. Fortunately, we can save ourselves the problem this time; the pre-packaged controversy in the film sounds wrong every moment, a true vitriol-raiser who raises eyebrows. The fireplay script distributed among the connoisseurs included some sincerely appalling touches, which were scrupulously removed from the final montage as if they wanted to hit a sweet spot of "enough to make them angry, but not for anyone to be canceled". A happier offensive version of this film already exists in the world, and although it does not make all that "better" by the criteria, it would certainly contribute to a more interesting conversation.

Instead, we get a primordial scream that can only blow and blow without annihilating anyone's house. The world continues to shit on Arthur via absurd methods both by their comic color and by their flagrant improbability. We join our man at work as a clown renting, busy turning signs for the day. For no other reason than occasional malevolence, a group of hooligans take off its sign, lure it into an alley and move on to defeat the poor guy's snot. "Beat it!" Shouts their leader. "Kick him!" Unless you already think that children are predisposed to cruelty for recreational purposes, their behavior makes no sense. This kind of thing happens often to Arthur, echoing the repeated complaint of the average high school student that everyone is against them.

Before the blood begins to flow, let's quote: "I hope my death will make more pennies [sic] that my life, "brushing the two middle words on the sign" do not forget to smile! And manually frowning his face as he looked at himself in the mirror. However, most of the time, it relieves the pain accumulated inside him by bursts of laughter like a raven attributed to an unusual illness. We are supposed to pity her, a notion brought home by her sad family life of an invalid mother (Frances Conroy) and an unpaid crush in the hallway (Zazie Beetz). He grew up without dad, dream of a celebrity who will never come, and feels closer to a Johnny Carson (Robert De Niro) replacement than he looks at the night. Finally, he must break.

When he finally does, Phillips reaches a climax of evil chaos that is certainly among the most technically accomplished sequences of his career. Putting aside the fact that this bar has been set to the extreme, his pseudo-pissed sermons deprive the final scenes of the impact that their film making would otherwise have. The Joker says "society" as a bad word, unaware that it makes him look more like a basement dweller shouting at his computer screen than the prophet / mower combination he and Phillips would like to see. he is. Phoenix delivers a resolutely committed performance of physical heaviness, but it always seems to make the best of what it was given. He is at his best in a barely contained silence, and never less imposing than when he recites Phillips's resentment speeches in the bush leagues. It is hard to buy that the citizens of Gotham would adopt such a devious rebel as a symbolic hero of his crimes against the ruling class, and even harder to imagine a real human being doing the same.

Here in Toronto, I saw a movie called The painted bird. A merciless chronicle of the endless tragedies that struck an unlucky child during the Holocaust years, she exhausted me and scared and horrified me. It made me want to leave, as half of the participants at its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, and forced me to stay in my place. He makes a truly disgusting statement about suffering and desperation and senseless savagery, seeing the full force of these ripe concepts. Todd Phillips may have left Italy with the Golden Lion, but in the end he can only dream of owning such power.

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