What Lies Behind Bane's Mask?

     For the last few weeks in the class, I have been working on this project, a writing project. The writing was focused on how language and meaning are shaped by culture and context. I have chosen to write about Bane's mask from The Dark Knight Rises using film review format.

     The Dark Knight Rises is the finale of the Dark Knight Trilogy by Christopher Nolan that came out in 2012. I personally think that this film is a great film and is a must watch. The film chose to slightly change the way they portray characters and that is why this film is one of my favorite. Throughout the film, Nolan hid multiple objects that can be use as symbol in the story but the one that got my attention the most seems to be the mask of our villain, Bane. There are multiple ways that this mask can be used as symbol and here are some ways that I can think of.

Masks, masks had always been something to use in order to hide the identity of the wearer, the usage ranges from concealing the identity of bandits to the people in the masked proms. It is a true symbol of mystery and it also work the same way in The Dark Knight Rises With Bane walks around in the film, never separated from his mask. The question is what does his mask stand for, why does he have to wear it all the time, what is it that he has to hide?

First thing we can spot about Bane's mask in the film is that its appearance does not look like the one in comic at all. The comic had almost always use the look of a luchador mask while this one had the look of a respirator mask, a dark, fearsome respirator mask. It is possible that Nolan might not want a childish looking luchador mask in his film since he had always applied darker theme to his Dark Knight franchise.

Being portrayed in darker tone, Bane had become something that is more of a monster than a man. This is because since ancient time, human had this belief of how darkness is associated with bad or evil. In other words, human fear darkness. Nolan exploited this part of culture and use it to enhance the looks of his characters.

     Now let's talk about the story of this mask. At young age, Bane was attacked by a group of people and was scarred and heavily traumatized. He also suffer from side-effect from the attack and this is where his mask came in. During the interview, “Nolan has revealed that Hardy's audio-muffling mask is actually pumping Bane's body full of anesthetic.”Bane is ravaged by pain from a trauma suffered long ago," he explains.” (Franklin-Wallis). Bane wears this mask in order to numb his pain. He said that it would be “extremely painful” to take off the mask.

  Though numbing the pain seems like a good reason to wear the mask, it surely could not be the only reason. Bane had been seen to successfully lead a crew to take over the Gotham City in order to “purge” it. With himself being no one but a person who came out of the pit, he needed something for his subordinates to look up to, he needs to be more than a man, and he needs ideal for his subordinate. “No one cared who I was until I put on a mask” mentioned Bane in the film. With his mask, Bane was able to create symbol, symbol that represents his ideal and he was able to use it to spread his idea and accomplish his task successfully in the film.

The Dark Knight Rises, the finale of the Dark Knight Trilogy of Christopher Nolan, though, is a very entertaining film, it also hides a lot of ideals and symbols in the film, one of that being the ideal of Bane’s mask. It is a very enjoyable movie and is a must watch.