By Keri O’Shea
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll have picked up on the great excitement online regarding the upcoming addition to the Batman series of movies, Suicide Squad. The makers of Suicide Squad aren’t stupid, and they know that a glimpse here or a peek there will do most of their advertising work for them – hence them using the internet to its full potential. Bearing in mind the existing popularity of the Batman universe amongst film fans and the constant drip-drip-drip of tantalising tidbits issuing forth from the team behind Suicide Squad, the safe money would of course be on the new film making a great success. But remember this: director David Ayer is just one man with one vision of how things should pan out. Other fans and other directors may see things differently, and focus on different aspects.
This brings us neatly to filmmaker Peter Dukes: we’ve covered a few of Peter’s earlier short films here on Brutal as Hell, namely Daniel, The Beast and the charming Little Reaper. For his most recent short, he’s donned his fandom hat to take a look at one of the Batman characters who has, to date anyway, never really been given her dues. The character is Harley Quinn – and the film is Sweet Madness:
We can’t say too much at the time of writing about how Margot Robbie is going to play Harley Quinn in the big-budget movie, but you can’t deny Madeleine Wade has charm in her rendition of the character in this snapshot of Harley in action. The film’s mid-action setting – necessary, given the time constraints – places us smack-bang in the middle of a domestic drama, with Harley negotiating for the Joker’s release, offering a straight swap for a kidnapped family. Interestingly, here Harley isn’t a peripheral character; the Joker’s in the film, but rather differently than we’re used to seeing him, and certainly not calling the shots as he usually does with his besotted female sidekick. Stripped of all his make-up and trappings, he even looks a bit less crazy than she does, and she is the one making the decisions. It’s a nice little development to the usual interplay between them.
Although the reach and the budgets of the new Batman franchise continue to sky-rocket, isn’t it nice to be reminded that there’s no single way to have fun with the Batman universe, and that you don’t need a fortune to play with the idea? Peter Dukes’ short film is a nicely-unhinged glimpse into an alternative set of outcomes for the characters. One to tide you over, ahead of 2016…