Amy and I used to go to movie theaters a lot. I would check Rotten Tomatoes, then we’d hop in the car and run down to the Century CinéArts 6 in Evanston or Landmark’s Renaissance Place Cinema in Highland Park, or up to the Oriental Theatre or Downer Theatre in Milwaukee. We tend to like the foreign and art house movies that never make it to Kenosha or Racine. Just before the 2005 Academy Awards, there were a couple of times when we drove to three different theaters per day.
Last night we watched last year’s Sin City, based on a Netflix recommendation. All I knew about it was that the visual effects were supposed to be remarkable.
Sin City is film adaptation of the comic books (now known in Newspeak as “graphic novels”) authored by Frank Miller. The visuals are high contrast, mostly black and white shots that emphasize patterns, angles and perspective, imitating Miller’s drawing style as much as possible. They are the movie’s best feature, very well done in many instances, and occasionally nothing special. I was surprised, watching a short “making of” feature afterward, to see that so much of it was shot against a green screen. The effects never seemed contrived during viewing, perhaps because while most films try to pass graphic creations off within reality, this one tried to pass real actors and cars off as graphic creations, which works much better.
This is definitely not a movie for the whole family. It is really violent and gruesome from beginning to end. It objectifies women and includes deeply disturbing themes like child molestation, torture, and cannibalism. At the same time, it actually is a good deal of fun.
Aside from stuff like Harvey Comics, I was never much of a comic book reader. I had never heard of Frank Miller before watching this movie, but I can sort of see his appeal. His world is gritty, stylized film noir. It’s all night and shadows, dames and mugs, and the cops and crooks are often one and the same. It’s made of dark alleys, classic cars, bloody knuckles and stiletto heels. Everything is way, way over the top, and that opens this material to frequent deadpan comedy. It soon becomes clear that the violence and suffering is so outrageous that it’s just plain funny. Nothing ever gets too graphic for adults. More of the grisliness is left to your imagination than is shown on the screen. Amazingly, there’s virtually no vulgarity, and the sex is all suggested.
The movie consists of three separate stories, which interlock with each other a little. I’m not going to go into detail about them, but I will say that the Marv character, played by Mickey Rourke with some prosthetics, is the best performance in the picture. Rourke does a great job of working his outsize role for all it’s worth, without any camp or irony. He makes Marv real. Brittany Murphy also has a moment. Benicio Del Toro is pretty good, Jessica Alba is pretty, Bruce Willis is Bruce Willis, and Michael Madsen is surprisingly weak in a small part as Willis’s detective partner.
For some reason, certain aspects of this movie reminded me of the daily news out of Baghdad. There was the cold-blooded, gruesome violence, of course, which seemed to permeate every inch of the vast, dirty city. There was torture, mutilation, and hopeless imprisonment. There was also the sense that almost everyone was criminal, from the politicians to the clerics to the police. Nevertheless, a couple of the characters stood up heroically and suffered excruciating pain, determined to win moral victories, albeit small ones, against the overwhelming tide of evil and chaos. In Baghdad, though, I doubt there are any neighborhoods filled with gorgeous hookers in fishnet pantyhose.
I didn’t have any particular expectations for Sin City, and it did not let me down. Amy stayed awake for the most part, and agreed that it was entertaining.
I rated it four stars out of five at Netflix.
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