A few weeks after winning the best film award at La Biennale in 2019, joker It began a journey that led to two Oscars and becoming the highest-grossing superhero film in history (for ages 17 and up), with over $1 billion. For that reason alone, the premiere of the sequel at the same festival, five years later, has already caused an unusual wait even in the buffet of stars that is the Lido.
Todd Phillipsdeclared “more nervous”, began the presentation in front of the press, in which he assured that we should not expect sequels or cinematographic universes after this second part: “The story of Arthur Fleck/Joker has been told before. “I can’t swear, but I’m not trying to stay in this universe anymore.”
The filmmaker insisted that it was impossible for them to work “with so many eyes glued to the back of their heads.”The Internet was full of speculative theories about the plot, even when we were still writing the script,” Philips said.
It was Joaquin Phoenix’s first public appearance after burying Todd Haynes’ new filma gay romance he wrote himself and was going to star in, only to abandon it days before filming began. However, the actor politely dodged questions about it.
He spoke about the incredible weight loss he underwent to prepare for the character: “I’m 49, I shouldn’t do this again. This will probably be the last time. The actor and his partner, the convinced actress Lady Gaga, aspire to the Oscar Olympus.
Joker: Madness for Two It’s excessive and arrogant, but…
Todd Phillips’ sequel is, in essence,another variation on the anti-hero formula that joker recycled among the worn seats of a taxi in the smoky night of New Hollywood, now with a musical glaze.
We find a Arthur Fleck, an Arkham intern, overwhelmed by medication and widespread abuseand we will follow him during the trial that will decide his freedom or the electric chair; a process disorganized by the comings and goings of Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), much more chaotic, who oppresses and stretches the eccentricities of the character, squeezing him under the aegis of a i love you.
At present Joker: Madness for Two Nor will it elucidate the authenticity of Arthur Fleck, oscillating instead between the compassionate study of an exploited patient and the fascination with the free and artistic nature of a made-up Norman Bates. Drained beyond his own status as a murderous puppet or scandalous douche duck, Fleck will once again serve to look at the human landscape around him, a mass as furious and monstrously blurry as in the previous film.
Today, Todd Phillips seems to be shielding himself from the criticism that five years ago drew attention to his cynicism. reiterating the humanity of some of his characters (a lawyer concerned about the oft-repeated “vulnerability” of the man behind the mask) and the brutality of the police system (a death at the hands of two police officers with clear echoes of George Floyd).
Phillips protects himself from politics by playing the equidistance, well-intentioned, even if it smells like the commitment of a grandmother who hands out tickets on Sundays. Also in cinematography, Joker: Madness for Two bet on two horses.
Of an opulent obscurantism, which embraces the backlight and travels like a shining vehicle to take us into the bowels of Arkham, Phillips deploys a series of more or less metaphorical visual occurrencesbut always with a childish arrogance. Remember Lee Quinzel drawing a damning smile on the glass with lipstick?
In addition, The filmmaker will pierce the general darkness with elements taken directly from the purest definition of the musical genre.of an almost dreamlike innocence. These are the accessories colorists, cartoons or the popular songs that invade the images, and that a clever Hildur Guđnadóttir then takes up, aggravating with all the weight of an orchestra. The mixture advances without friction, even without great discoveries.
Phoenix, in all his faculties but worryingly thin, once again displays the honeys of a bodily expressionism which draws as much on the sad faces of Charlie Chaplin as on the acrobatics of Buster Keaton… Even if its showcase of crazy gestures is also somewhat reduced: in joker We could already see him laughing and dancing, we could already see him stretching his arms in the air, cigarette in his mouth. I doubt that the limitation of his choreography is due to the desire to characterize without falling into the Hellenistic excesses of Nicolas Cage.
Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in the film
For your partLady Gaga enjoys some songs at the top of her lungsalthough they arrive motivated by the entertainment morbid that moves his Harley Quinn… We can look at them with skepticism, but not deny them.
In reality, everything Joker: Madness for Two evolves under the same ambivalent, ironic and discreetly conservative shell… Everything, up until the third act, which With a gap of humanism, he decides to resolve the paradoxical identity of his clown protagonist.
Brave, the film will realize that the fork between Joker and Arthur Fleck led to equally tragic destinations, two alleys where there is nothing left to tell. Now, of course, all that remains is to see it.
