All I have are negative thoughts…

               What can I do, when all I have are negative thoughts? Would you understand if I told you? No, you wouldn’t get it. Million thoughts, train on full speed, yet still left me speechless. Joker is wake up call for society.

This might contain spoilers to the plot – fair warning!

                It took me quite some time to sit down and gather my notes about this movie. You know, I have a small notebook, where I keep my thoughts. Not a diary, it’s strictly for writing purposes. So after I watched this movie for the first time, with my friends from Movie Club, I started writing all kinds of.. Feelings, moments, thoughts. I’m not gonna lie – I felt
(and I still do) completely overwhelmed by this movie.

Thoughts… All I have are negative thoughts.

                Mind is a dangerous and fragile thing. It can be useful and make you strong, but it can also trick you, in the worst possible way. I don’t understand how it works – I think none of us do, but… We keep on trying, right? There are tons of research, tons of papers on the subject, yet mind sitll remains a mystery.

How much your mind can take? How strong your mind is? How much, until it breaks, until you break? I’m scared to answer my own questions. How many hits can you take, before you set free your real self, because you don’t care anymore? And it does not matter if your real self
is a cold blooded murderer, a bully or a victim. How many times you must fall, before deciding that you don’t want to stand up anymore? How many times, until you realize that living down there on the ground is okay, it’s not that bad… And there are people that lie there with you, people who lost the same struggle. Struggle? Battle! War!

It’s tragic. Losing to yourself, to your demons, often created by society. It’s a lose after which you will never fully recover. It changes you, forever.

Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?

                Now, when exactly did we stop caring about each other? What made society so bitter, so indifferent? So cold… People are awful, we! We are awful. To each other, to ourselves. Where is this hatred coming from?

If it was me dying on the sidewalk, you’d walk right over me. I pass you every day and you don’t notice me! Jesus Christ. This line, among many others, crushed my broken heart. For Arthur Fleck it took murder to finally be noticed by society. Taking someone’s life, the greatest joke, no one would get. I am devasted, can this really happen?

Phillip’s Joker shows one of the ultimate struggles – rich vs. poor. Gotham lost its way, Wayne says. Did it, though? Let’s not throw the blame around, it does not matter now. I mean, can you really blame just the poor or just the rich? No. Gotham lost its morality and empathy, that’s for sure.

I just don’t want to feel so bad anymore…

                Another wrecking ball to crush remaining pieces of my heart. Arthur Fleck, mentally ill man who tries to be improvised stand-up comedian, fights. He tries, just a little bit. But does anyone wants to help? His therapist doesn’t’ listen. His mother lied to him about the most fundamental things in his life. His mind tricks him into thinking that he might actually make it, that he actually has a chance to be accepted by society as respected and successful comedian, as boyfriends, as son… As human being. But mind is a fragile thing. One small push, one nudge in wrong direction and we’re crossing a line. And we take another step, farther from the line, and suddenly it is so hard to come back.

And you take another hit. You’re mental, remember? And therefore disregarded. People feel weird around you. Another punch. One more, and you will surrender to the darkness in your mind. Your heart gave up years ago. Another punch, and you are on the floor realizing, that it’s familiar. It’s safe, you know this place so well. You are the king, under mind’s command. And… And suddenly, one last spark ignites, but it’s your mind doing a trick on you. You can take back control over your life, if you kill them.

Will you pull the trigger?

I used to think that my life was a tragedy. But now I realize, it’s a comedy.

                Joaquin Phoenix as Joker was… Terrifying. Brilliant. Psychotic, magnetic and breathtaking. The way he showed Arthur’s transformation into Joker! The dancing scenes, first in the bathroom (completely improvised by Phoenix, it was his reaction to a piece of soundtrack played by Phillips) is hands down, iconic. A non-verbal transformation in the greatest villain in Gotham’s history. Moment, when he accepts his fate and realizes that this means something. Means. He means something. Second take on the stairs, just as symbolic but this time “sharper” act of acceptance his mind’s greatest trick. Becoming Gotham’s King of the Jokes.

Phoenix… Jesus, even his shoulder blades performed in exceptional way. His eyebrows, his smile, his wild eyes, each time the ran hand through his hair, every expression, every nervous, “mental” laughter hurt me, in a way I can’t explain.

It’s so hard just to try and be happy all the time…

                Why the hell we sympathize with Joker? Why is he the most beloved DC villain? What makes him so special? Why do we root for him? Why suddenly it is okay to kill 3 people and shoot someone on live television, and people will start riots glorifying this actions?
It’s absolutely horrible.

But.

It all comes down to questions I asked – how much can you take? How much can we all take? And if one person had the courage, courage to show the desperation? I don’t know, I still can’t wrap my mind about this.

Joker became a symbol to the masses. Not the one that years later Bruce Wayne wanted to be – hero for people to rely on. Joker became face of the poor citizens, that are tired.

                Phillips movie is a depressingly tragic portrait of reality, that hits you right in the heart, crushes you without warning. Technically – Joker is perfect: colors, slow takes, attention to details, showing stages of mental illness with no breaks and music that touches your soul, is a complete picture. I saw it twice and the second time hit me even harder. My heart will not recover any time soon.

She always tells me to smile and put on a happy face.

                Watching this movie on World Metal Health Day… Additional emotional package, profoundly symbolic. I will carry this pain for a long, long time. There is no hope, no happy ending. No help.