Thriller, romance, trial film, musical... This second part of the Joker of the Todd Phillips is about everything. About everything except what is expected of him. And this is perhaps what has disappointed critical and public since his first screening at the Venice Mostra. Still, hold on! This second part is – once not customary – probably better than the original. Let's try to figure out why...
The Joker of the Incels
Arthur Fleck aka the Joker (Joaquin Phoenix, always him, and difficult to miss...), stubborn by a chemical cloud, is locked in Arkham prison, ready to be tried for the crimes committed in the previous film. Yet his encounter with Lee (alias Harley Quinn, interpreted by Lady Gaga) prepares to turn his daily life rhythmic by the abuse of a band of unconciliatory guards and the morosity of a frankly creepy prison.
This is a brief summary of this Folly with two, which follows directly on from the first strand, so-called Joker. And if this first film had something to delight, it is quite possible that public and commentators were smoky in the euphoric bubble of the multiplication of the praiseworthy criticisms surrounding the Joker of 2019. And this until the birth of a plethora of articles on a (good) film that was still far away from a masterpiece.
This first rereading certainly had good arguments for her, but the film was totally parasitized by the game an excessive tantinet (that is an understatement) of Phoenix and spread a political pamphlet finally quite weak, no doubt at the height of his director's commitment, which is easily guessed to belong to a soft centrism.
To soft centrism, political message Mollasson... This is how the film was so easily recovered by a fringe of the far right and by the incel movement (involuntary celibate, or "involuntary single" in French), which an article by the Courier international narrates very well Here. To say nothing, one ends up leaving a very wide interpretive margin to his audience, who can easily turn the film's message against him: Joker would thus become the singer of these neglected males, now driven by their misogynous and violent impulses.
And Todd Phillips seems to have learned the lesson... Not that he offers today with Joker: Folie à Deux a political message of radicality to drive the incels away, the tail between their legs. On the contrary! But Phillips has fun constantly pulling his film from his audience, always diverting pre-conceived expectations to make the bet of the deceptive. This until it tells its two protagonists, in the exact mid-film, that they do not seem to deliver to their audience what they expect from them in a scene obviously meta but taken up (surprisingly) by very few critics.
Meta-Joker
But this meta dimension extends far beyond this single scene. Indeed, during almost the entire film Phoenix will hardly arbore the famous make-up so characteristic of his character, except when it is encouraged to do so... So it is the others, through what they see in him, who paint this monster mask on his face, until they erect it at symbol level. A kind of golden calf, taken in intra-diegetic by some (the character becomes a symbol of resistance) and extra-diegetic by others (Joker the film, which becomes a pop-cultural object built as a lever of masculinists).
The film of 2019 and the character of the Joker himself suffer from the same evil: getting stuck on the forehead a label they resent. And this Folly to Two will amuse at the length of the plan to point at this, until rewrite from goal in white the whole mythology of the Joker. Of this being whose quintessence is evil in the universe BatmanPhillips made it a fragile creature, psychologized and manipulated, carrying on his face the painted stigmas of an external emergency.
While the drunkenness of the media exhibition was excited, Arthur Fleck never wanted to wear on his face this mask that is imposed on him. Residual from the impulses of an entire oppressed people, miasms of indefensible violence and legitimate demands, he finds himself trapped in his own character whose prison seems ultimately the only possible antidote.
Yet, even there nothing does: the tentacular vectors of this viral disease that Joker immiscents everywhere, even in the most protected cells of Arkham... The end shows it well: Arthur Fleck was only a vector, a body that the virus lived for a time but that he did not hesitate to kill to continue his dizzying pandemic of violence.
You will understand: Joker: Folie à Deux is much more interesting than expected. And – let us dare say it – even better than the first part, because less parasitized by Joaquin Phoenix's omnipresence cabotine and more conscious of the sense in which his mythology evolves... A nice surprise from which there was not much to expect!
Very nice analysis with an interesting angle. You convinced me to give him a chance!
I hope you're not disappointed!
The 4K Ultra HD has been pre-ordered since the first day... In any case, today, when a film takes its audience back to hair, there is a mass rejection (amplified by social networks) without any analysis behind it. That's pretty depressing! 😞
I look forward to your return! Yes, unfortunately this is often the case :/ (RIP Furiosa...)