Watching WATCHMEN
Having avoided the film version of Alan Moore’s landmark graphic novel when it played the movie house, I finally broke down and checked out the “Director’s Cut” DVD from the library. On the one hand, I was repulsed, specifically by the horrific violence, which was more hinted at in the comic than displayed. Of course, it’s been more than 20 years since the comic appeared, and I expected the R-rated film to take its liberties. As most fans know, in both graphic novel and movie, Dr. Manhattan is nekkid as the proverbial jaybird. Yet, his nudity seemed rather innocuous to me; perhaps because he’s impossibly muscled, blue, and glowing. His eyes seem perpetually rolled up into his head. He doesn’t really look human. I fast-forwarded through the boring scenes featuring badly-made up versions of Nixon and Kissinger. Otherwise, I found most of the visuals striking, hard to take your eyes off.
One scene that drew me in, in fact, riveted me, was the scene between Manhattan and Lori on Mars. In the gigantic clockwork ”floater” he’s constructed, as they pass over the red landscape, he reasons himself, if not back to humanity, at least back to earth to help in the crisis Adrian Veidt has created. He muses over a concept and a word Alan Moore didn’t–miracle. Lori has learned that the sadistic Comedian, Eddie Blake, is her real father. Incredibly, despite the rape that produced this child, her mother, Sally, loves Blake as she loves her daughter. Thinking out loud, Dr. Manhattan speaks of an act of senseless violence that led somehow to the miracle called Lori. He says it’s like making gold out of air. I thought it was one of the more subtly powerful arguments I’ve ever heard against abortion. (I wish I could remember more of Manhattan’s monologue. Guess I’ll have to watch that part again.)
The most fully-realized and sympathetic character in the piece is Rorshach. He started out as a damaged youth, unwanted by his promiscuous mother, taunted by bigger, stronger boys. In his flawed psyche he substitutes justice for love. Yet he’s no killer–not, that is, until he discovers the horrific evidence of a raped and murdered little girl. He watches two vicious dogs tearing at what’s left of her severed leg–and snaps. No longer will he be “soft” on evil. In case we missed the point, we have to suffer through watching him cleave the murderer’s head again and again. As played by Jackie Earle Haley, Walter Kovacs is a lost child himself. I was sorry to see him destroyed, albeit at his own request, by Dr. Manhattan.
I’m not recommending Watchmen. Save for the above-mentioned monologue, it really isn’t something I need to see twice. I probably could’ve taken it better if it hadn’t been about people wearing costumes and capes. The incongrutity between such childlike fantasy and real life evil is simply too great for them to be juxtposed.
