Last night I went with a few friends to see The Dark Knight Rises. I was somewhat afraid that it would be a disappointing end to a strong trilogy, but it wasn't. It was engaging and it lived up the first two in raising serious questions, proving to be more of an intense, messy look at politics, society and human nature than it is just light summer entertainment.
There were two different verses that it really brought to mind.
Twice in Jeremiah, God says,
Were they ashamed when they committed abominations?
No, they were not at all ashamed;
they did not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among the fallen;
when I punish them, they shall be overthrown.
[Jeremiah 6:15 and 8:12]
Throughout the movie, there are times when there is not only injustice, but there is a total mockery of justice. There are trials that are so obviously twisted that it is sickening, because it's wrong dressing itself up and pretending to be right, and it's simply ugly.
The other verse was Psalm 11:3:
If the foundations are destroyed,
What can the righteous do?
I wouldn't say that any character in this trilogy is wholly righteous. Some seem more innocent -- Alfred, Blake -- but overall they are portrayed as human, messy, broken, fraught with their own issues of anger and selfishness. Even when they try to do good, it sometimes goes horribly awry. But that does seem to be one of the overarching questions of the trilogy: when the foundations are so rotten, when the powerful are corrupt and evil thrives in the sewers and, in the face of disaster, the citizens are quick to destroy one another rather than attempt to save each other -- what can the righteous do?
The Dark Knight Trilogy doesn't provide a lot of answers. Sacrifice. Hope. Believe. Risk. They are kind of vague.
But it raises a lot of the right questions.
And that is what I enjoy in a story.
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