Many of you sent me this video for Batman: Ashes to Ashes, a French fan-flick by Julien Mokrani and Samuel Bodin that... well, let me run down the list:
• Uses that same Frank Miller/Sin City/Spirit-style
• Is mostly focused on one low-level thug
• Is in French
• Is very much R-Rated
• Features Batman killing people
• Is French
...and yet, this is still somehow very, very awesome. Just let go and enjoy it as a very well-made fan flick that's uncharacteristically dark (yes, even for Batman -- more than one Bat-pal dies) and doesn't pay strictest attention to Bat mythology. If you can do that, I think you're in for a pretty neat time (although Batman does first appear 8 minutes in if you find yourself bored).
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Oh and the Joker going crazy and raping the guy's wife and having her smash the baby to death? Yeah, just a wee bit over the top with the grit. And here I thought Azarello's Joker graphic novel was an extreme take on the character.
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I really don't get why people who spend time on making fanfilms go with these 'What if..' scenarios. Grayson was another one that did it and I never cared for it. Plus the style here was just okay. A bit too Sin City with 1930s expressionist cinema. Harley did look amazing though. Still, I think the Spanish Arkham Asylum short / trailer i still the best one I've seen. While Dead End was a neat crosssover film
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JayWicky: that's a different site. http://www.comicbookmovie.com a majority of them hate it with a passion. I found it interesting and different. Like how he actually struck fear in others. Something the new films don't do.
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Very, very cool. Great take. Great style. And, sorry, BATMAN: DEAD END can't touch this. That was a fun bit of fan fic. This is a quality short film in its own right.
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BvPvA is a classic. Everyone should see it.
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Colin is right. For a comparison film, please see the Batman vs Predator vs Aliens fanfilm that Rob posted previously here. That one was awesome. This one was just just a silly and failed attempt at Frenchery that loses completely the spirit of both Batman AND the Joker. Harley Quinn was alright, and pretty hot.
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That was terrible they completely fucked up what Batman is, but I suppose this is what it's like for the French to watch Steve Martin as Inspecter Closeau.
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"Guilt is like a terrible diarrhea." I've felt guilty before, but jesus...
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Reverend Ender = please submit your own fan movie of vastly superior quality, or any other you know of for that matter, and we can contrast and compare quite easily. thank you.
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Have to agree with Marsten on this one, Batman could totally go Charles Bronson on everyone's asses. I have to say I was impressed,when I read this was a french fan film my eyebrows were raised, but this was pretty damn good. Reverend Ender needs to lighten up, its a batman fan film, not the Cannes,christ.
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Why call it a Batman fanfilm when it's so obviously a Sin City fanfilm ? I'm surprised at the relatively low amount of French-bashing in the comments here. When I first saw this, my immediate reaction was "Oooboy. The average Wizard-thumping, French-bashing, Jean de Baton-Batonning American comic book geek is going to have a field day with this". But most of you seem to be genuinely enjoying that flick. Let it be a lesson for my fellow Frenchmen : we might be one of America's favorite objects of contempt and ridicule, but even we can fuck up an American icon and get away with this... as long as we include sick, demented sex and gore.
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Well, I have just lost all faith in this site, Rob, and all of its readers. That was utter garbage. I have seen much French cinema, I enjoy French cinema, I also love Batman. That was a pathetic attempt at both. It was absolutely, unequivocally terrible.
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Where can I download this? This rocks!
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Ok, awesome. Couple of questions though: ~It makes sense for it to be Eddie's baby, since they talked about it at the start ("you're doing this for your daughter", etc) but you never see a baby in his and Harley's room. Does the baby just hang out most of the time or what? ~What kind of a hostel/saw/pulp fiction doohickey was he hooked up to when he met the joker? Cuz it looked like he was just tied to a chair, with spiky boxing gloves on his hands. I would think that the latter could resolve the former..unless I'm missing something. ~Was anyone else thinking Powerthirst in the church scene? "When God gives you Batman...you FIND A NEW GOD"
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Wait. Who's baby was being, uh, slammed? That Eddie guy's? Or someone else's?
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Counterattack, thank you, I thought I was the only one stuck on the babyslamming fuckery. Probably my favorite part, just cause it's the most fucked up. Also Bats going all devil in the church. I'd be scared.
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Are the japanese and the french in some sort of fucked-up-film competition with eachother? Seriously, what was with the combination sex+baby murder?
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I agree with most of the above comments, this was beautifully done. However, one of Batman's defining characteristics is his strong adherence to rehabilitation versus brute punishment, and I don't see that aspect of his personality being particular tied up in or personified by Alfred, so that part of the film just doesn't click for me. Nonetheless, extremely interesting to watch, so good post. :D
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I can certainly agree with this. There's no good reason why Batman wouldn't kill; the guy dresses up as a bat, he's not exactly SANE in the first place. His 'thou shalt not kill' code is just a relic of the editorial Comic Code days; if you want to take the character seriously, you have to face the fact that in a sane world he would be viewed as a violent, dangerous psychopath. A force of nature. Again, this film fucking rules.
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One of my strongest comic beliefs is that Batman won't kill. Yet I thought this short was pretty darn good. France. Been there. Enjoyed every moment. Angel-A renewed my faith in French films.
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I'm a bit mystified by the seemingly ineradicable American contempt for and perception of the French as sissified goofs myself, given that just about every other word in the English language to describe something of a military nature is of French origin, but Batman actually <i>killing</i> people? I'm there! :D
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Harley was the only part of it that wasn't terrible.
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Keith — I have no problem with the French. I thought this thing was awesome.
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Hi everyone ! My name is Jonathan, I'm a french writer/blogger on the blog Lords of the Geeks (all in french, sorry fellows). I interviewed Julien Mokrani just today, I think I can provide some informations about the movie. The flick take place on 1938, on a Gotham struggled by crisis and prohibition (not accurate on an historical point, but that's on purpose). The idea is that (spoiler) with the assasination of Alfred, Bruce Wayne losted the only rational figure, the only person here to save his sanity. So with Alfred gone, Batman is no longer a hero but a revengefull avenger, a shadow suffering from his loss. The explanation for the beard and no-glove thing is that Bruce just took his cape on and gone to take a revenge. No suit or belt or any gadget, just his fucking cape and his fucking bare hands. Hope my english was good enough to help you understand a little more the whole project. (And I gave to Julien the link to this post, so maybe he will give you more details by himself.)
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Dark and weird and awesome.
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That was <i>freeeee-keeeee</i>! I'm sure that'd be well received in several different circles, but never on a large, national/global/mainstream scale. Still good, though. And the French origin adds There's a <i>je ne sais quoi</i> to the meme, a class and refinement to it, amidst the brutality and depravity. Diggin' it!
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What's with the french hating?
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That... It... That was... ...
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Pretty cool. It felt like it was taking place in the twenties in some ways. We saw the Penguin, Harley Quinn and Joker, but was "Eddie" possibly Eddie Nigma, the Riddler? Hmmm... Batman not wearing gloves is a good point, although he just might want to feel his victim's hot blood running through his fingers...
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Needs more Maurice Chevalier. ;)
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Love how they're totally making fun of Christian Bale's growly voice. RAWR RAWR! Other than that, it was terribly awesome at some points, and terribly, horribly french in others. At some points I couldn't tell what the heck was going on.
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That was, without a doubt, the BEST Batman film I have ever seen. Seriously.
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Wow. . . How many demented things can we throw into a 15 minute movie. I'm disturbed yet . . . even though it was off, I liked it.
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That was the frenchiest french that ever frenched. Seriously. It was straight out of the 19...any decade before the 60's.
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the screwed up thing is aside from it being so off the only thing that bothered me was batman not wearing gloves
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very well done. but, GEEZUZ! what effed up thing did they not put into that?
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dammit, now whenever I see Batman, I'm gonna want him to have a beard
TotalComments: 37
