caraig | Sin City

So, just got back form seeing Sin City. Thought I would post some thoughts about it.
For starters, this movie richly deserves it's R rating. A lot of blood, a lot of violence. Some nudity but none of that bothered me. You may think it odd of me, but the only segment that really gave me any irksome moments was the "Girls of Old Town" segment (I think it's from The Big Fat Kill) for a couple of reasons. More on that shortly.

Quentin Tarantino was listed as 'Special Guest Director.' Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? What's a Special Guest Director? Is that when you invite David Hasselhoff onto your sitcom and he directs as well as makes a cameo? Humor aside, you can definitely see Tarantino's touches on the film, from the grisly and dark humor to the layout of the movie itself.

Sin City is arranged in a series of segments, each telling a separate story, and each independent. Some characters make crossover appearances in other segments, but for the most part, each segment stands on it's own. They are not in chronological order, either, which makes for some confusion. This isn't surprising since from what I've read the movie is based off of three of Frank Miller's graphic novels. In this it's not unlike Pulp Fiction. Not exactly the best seed to grow from, but there could be worse.

The movie has been called noir, and there are a lot of similarities to that genre: the anti-heroes, a city full of corruption, the only defense against worse criminals being people who skirt the edge of the law, a lot of nastiness done not so much for justice but to 'even the scales.'

The dialogue was very, almostpainfully, noir, almost a caricature of noir voiceovers and metaphor, in fact. In truth, you could have called one of the main characters "Max Payne" and you'd be getting what I mean. I half-expected one of them to growl out huskily, "The dark night of the city sucks out your soul like an overactive Hoover." (This, by the way, is an old joke/catchphrase from Max Payne back on the GameSpy forums. Any time Max showed up in one of the 'versus' discussions he had to say it. It was like one of the Laws of Video Game Physics.) The bizarre way the dialogue was brought about was underlined when one of the main characters was having a conversation with a dead, dirty cop.

The cinematics and special effects were really great, I felt. More than that was the subtle use of color. For the most part the movie was black and white, but there were some touches of color that brought forth some great moments. At times, it seemed like the film was being shot on infrared film, or at least someone had turned up the contrast. The whites were REALLY white, the darks were REALLY dark; and sometimes blood showed up as stark white on the screen. This just made the blotches of color all the more startling and evocative. Some of it was obvious, like the yellow for the senator's son, or the harsh red of the blood (when it was colored as such, which wasn't too often,) but there were more subtle indicators. The blonde of Goldie's hair, for example -- that was a great way to use the medium to not only tell but show how Marv viewed Goldie. There were even more subtle touches: the blue of Miho's kimono rippled kind of like water in one shot. Perhaps the most wonderful use of the fading-in-and-out of color was when Bruce Willis's character was visiting the bar that Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba, I think) danced at, after having not seen her for eight years. The blushes of color made their moments of eye contact and finally recognition warmer and closer and more person. Again, wonderful use of the medium to show and not merely tell. The sky in the closing shootout of the "Big Fat Kill" segment -- deep, swirling blood red -- also marked the emotions of the event and the emotions of the main characters.

Sin City isn't without it's faults, though, or at least if not faults than things that didn't sit great with me. As I said, for those who know me, it may seem odd that the "Big Fat Kill" segment would bother me. I mean, the girls of Old City walking around in things that really aren't worn in polite company. I can't put a finger on it, though, because maybe the combination of that with the sheer ferocity of the closing shootout scene -- involving a lot of automatic weapons fire -- seemed too dissonant. Or maybe I just couldn't deal with the fact that this was a large number of very heavily-armed women with enough firepower to start and finish a war in most small Third World countries... who were still "forced by circumstance" to be streetwalkers.

It's interesting to note, in a similar vein, that none of the females in the film had any voiceovers. Maybe this is a holdover from real noir dialogue, since that kind of voiceover work has to be delivered in a kind of soft, growly, husky voice. (Though, maybe someone purring, "The dark night of the city...," et cetera, would go over well. Who knows?) The women in the film stood in an odd border-zone. Almost all were strong in their own way, almost viciously, violently so in some cases. And yet there were definite elements where they very much relied on the male lead characters. It was disconcerting actually; like in trying move from the meek and mild female film stereotype, they went right over to the extreme of the "amazon killer" and still didn't loose the unnerving feeling at the amount of female "eye candy" on the screen. I'll say this much, most of them didn't stand around being victimized, and instead came off as fairly strong of character. I don't know, there's still something dissonant in it that bothers me.

Oh, yeah... and the last segment with Nancy and the old cop. If the scene in the motel room before Willis took a shower had gone any further, I'd have been mildly creeped out. Though I do approve of the casting choices; both 19-year-old Nancy and 11-year-old Nancy both looked a lot alike -- mostly in the roundness of the face -- such that I could see the resemblance, or at least the implied resemblance.

It makes an interesting point of view, actually. Just about everyone in the film, except for Bruce Willis's character, exhibited some sort of mental instability. I mean everyone. I'll go into details if you want, but I really do mean everyone. Heck, for that matter, maybe Bruce could be considered so, as well, if you think about it.

Oh, by the way: if you @fangirl (or @fanboi, for that matter) Elijah Wood, this movie will cure you of that right quick. Elijah Wood is FRICKIN' CREEPY, man! I have to agree with what one person once said about him in Sin City: Kevin is most definitely not Frodo. Holy shamolie, he is not Frodo by a long shot.

Oh, yeah: I'm probably going to be stopping going to the movie theaters as much as I have been, which isn't all that much anyway. $7.50 for a 1:45PM showing (I would call that a matinee showing.) Nearly 9 bucks for a small soda and small popcorn. You want to know where the real motion picture piracy is going on? It's in the lobbies of movie theaters. Utterly inappropriate.

So no more recommendations from me about seeing a film in a theater unless I really really think you'll want to see it. 'Business in the same area' as a movie theater is no longer just cause for plonking down money, least of all that much money. I'm not saying I want my $7.50 back... but I do want my concessions money back, and maybe a couple of bucks on top of it. Thus, on that note, my final verdict is to wait for rentals. You can wait that long for this film. Maybe when it hits the New Releases shelf, but not sooner.

Pax.