Joker

An invitation to see Mr. J

Harley Quinn contacted me to see if I wanted to see Joker in the cinema and I was delighted to hear from my Cosplaying/Acting friend Kimberley Lendinez Nuñez A.K.A. HarleyKim.

Kimberley’s boyfriend was in hospital so she had to cancel their plans and offered me her tickets knowing that I live near that cinema.

I hadn’t seen Kimberley in two years and we decided to see the film together as Anna couldn't make it either.

I hadn’t planned to see Joker as I didn’t know what to make of it from the reviews and advertisements I had seen but I'm glad that I did and was delighted to catch up with Kimberley.

The film was great; dark, violent but interesting. Joquin Phoenix was brilliant in the role but the film is difficult to watch as the protagonist struggles from scene to scene to catch a break.

The world is a very dark place right now with a Kurdish genocide generated from a tweet that withdrew American troops from Syria. We see corruption in America and incompetence in Great Britain and the Amazon on fire. Each of us is struggling in our own way and I don’t think we should be giving sympathy to the Joker even though it is important to address the difficulties that can shape a person’s life and I was happy to see a focus on mental illness.

I arrived early at the cinema and could see a police wagon across the road and flags I had never seen before in my life. More police started to arrive and I could see a tv crew filming the small protest.

I was very curious and went over to investigate. I was also very aware that something could happen very quickly as Spain has seen numerous protests and violent clashes over the last seven days.

The flags and protests seemed to be about trans migrant people and defending their rights which I thought was strange as I thought it was better to fight for trans’ rights and immigrant rights than defending trans migrants but I took note of some of the banners and went back to the cinema and waited for my friend.

I had met Kimberley over 4 years earlier when an amateur Japanese producer tried to form a group of moviemakers to make short films in a short amount of time in Madrid.

A script I had written was chosen as the first film and I jumped at the chance to direct the film.

Kimberley played the lead and was fantastic in The Last Bus but I had to scrap the project, being far too ambitious for the resources available to us.

Kim and I have kept in touch over the years and want to resurrect our vampire film but strangely we only seem to meet in October around Halloween.

Kimberley and her boyfriend Diego are both D.C. Comic fans and have the most amazing Instagram pictures of themselves dressed as Batman and Harley Quinn or Diego as Aquaman.

Despite seeing the Wayne family being featured in Joker, Batman didn’t yet have a part to play and I thought it inappropriately funny that Diego was in the hospital with a throat infection and started to imagine him developing a deep Batman voice.

Kim has dressed the part as the character Harley Quinn who is the Joker’s girlfriend so when she contacted me to see Mr. J as the character refers to him, I couldn’t refuse.

Kimberly is busy preparing more costumes as a new Harley Quinn film is being promoted but back to this film. My lead actress in my vampire film was sitting beside me in the cinema and I was curious how the D.C. fan would react to the Joker.

When Kimberley isn’t a vampire she seems to be the Joker’s girlfriend but in reality, she is more Catwoman than anything else as she is training in zoology and spends her time taking care of big cats such as tigers and when she is at home she takes care of two meerkats.

Watching the film but having never seen Suicide Squad, I was at a loss to see the appeal of Harley Quinn even though she was played by the beautiful Margot Robbie.

The young girl who was sitting on my left disappeared around the time of a particularly bloody violent scene and never returned.

Kimberley covered her eyes in a reassuring gesture that she doesn’t want to be the Joker’s girlfriend and she had to cover her eyes at the violence as this is a girl who spends her time around animals and nature and questions what is wrong with humanity as animals kill for food and not for fun.

Our cosplaying Catwoman turned to me at the end of the violent scene and joked, "wow this is bloodier than our vampire film" and if I ever get to finish The Last Bus, in the words of Daniel Day-Lewis, “There will be blood.”

I could never dream to direct anything as good or bad as Joker, not even in my worst nightmare but let’s hope Diego is back on his feet and feeling well before long and Kimberley gets all the roles she deserves whether as a cat woman in a zoo or playing a D.C. girlfriend.

We both laughed of course when she said she had to catch the last bus home.

Jorge Cerrada has done an amazing job photographing Harvey Kim's D.C. themed photographs and is well worth following him on Instagram @j.cerradaphotographie.