FORGIVE ME FOR THE LAUGHTER















"Through my whole life, I did not know if I really existed. 
But, I do... and people are starting to notice."

- Joker

I am an old-timer, you see. So, I went to the multiplex one day before and booked two tickets (for my wife and me ) for the 'Joker' movie. The person at the counter confirmed and reconfirmed from me, at least three times, that none of the two was a minor. I smiled and  assured him, that my wife and I had long entered into our adulthood... "My mother, always, tells me to smile and put on a happy face," Arthur Flek,  Joker, says in this movie!

Chalo, I did not tell my wife what happened at the ticket counter. But,  yesterday, just while walking into the theatre, I brought myself to tell her, that the movie might leave us a lot 'disturbed' - rather 'shaken'...

"Why are you telling me this now?" she shouted, "now that we are inside."

Good, I had booked the tickets a day in advance. We got the 'C'- row ( the third row from behind) and my wife's preferred 'isle seats'. Every seat was occupied by a generation baptized at the DC altar... The young men and women - well-informed, evolved and dressed - made my wife an me feel, that we were still young and had a heart to see this movie... 

Jokes apart, let's come to the 'Joker'...

It's a beautiful movie... so beautifully crafted... such a great story, direction, music, cinematography, editing, and, above all... yes, you know what I am going to tell next - acting by Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Flek ('Joker'). You have so much info out there about him, the film-makers and so many reviews of the movie, that I do not wish to add any more here... 







Just two or three beautiful things... 

The movie, through Arthur Flek's life, takes us through the sad and misunderstood journey of a person with serious mental ill-health. Arthur is a soft-spoken, shy, caring soul in this movie. But, what goes inside his lonely head - yes, behind that mask - makes us reserve our judgments and empathize with him...

"Give a man a mask and he will show you his true self" this was Joker's famous line in one of the Batman movies. Well, he had borrowed it from Oscar Wilde, you see...

The 'Mask', for millions of shy people like me, could be these social media platforms like FB, Insta, Twitter, WhatsApp and such. Have you ever analysed, why we do what we do here -  write, share, preach, spread etc the stuff which we are dreadful of displaying otherwise?  Just think about it. And, the 'Mask', for millions of shy, lonely and secluded people (I am not one of them, though) could be a few pegs or beers down, or the deadly joints some around us smoke... Yes, it is a 'disturbing' movie, if it hits you hard on your masked face, which it does!

"Forgive me for the laughter... I have a condition," this was the card Arthur's mother made him carry along and show to strangers outside whenever they would get disturbed and angry by his uncontrollable laughing bouts... "Please return this card," was what written behind!

In the scene, when Arthur shows this card to the angry woman in the bus, I could feel a lump in my throat!

"You don't listen, do you? You just ask the same questions every week. 'How's your job?' 'Are you having any negative thoughts?' All I have are negative thoughts." Well, this was another throat-lump moment. Arthur tells this to the lady who has been medically treating him... 

How sad it can be... How lonely!

"Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there? The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don't." Just stay with this anguish of Arthur...


None of us, I am sure, will take to a gun after watching 'Joker'. Just as so many around us have not stopped smoking even if it is written so clearly on the cigarette packets - 'Smoking kills'! In this movie, Arthur continuously smokes... and, the screen continuously tells us - 'More than seventy lakh people (or seventy million? I don't remember) die because of smoking', every year'! Yes, we all do what we want to do, not what Joker wants us to do...  

We never learn to be violent from a Joker. Violence is not about just killing senselessly. There is violence in all of us and, with out needing guns and knives, we keep 'killing' so many! 

Have you ever wondered as to from where has the expression, 'Lunatic', come?  In one of the Batman movies, Jokers asks this:
“Have you ever danced with the devil on the pale moonlight?”

To see this dance, watch this beautiful movie 'Joker'. It will leave your soul not dirtied but a lot  cleansed, I bet.






GERALD D'CUNHA

Pic.: www.dreadcentral.com

Videos: 1. FilmSelect Trailer 2, CineMojo

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