71. Sin City

Robert Rodriguez (with Frank Miller and Quentin Tarantino), 2005

This was undoubtedly my favorite movie of last year, standing head and shoulders above all the others. Mind you, the film had a little bit of work to do to win me over. I am not a fan of Robert Rodriguez. I haven’t enjoyed any of his previous films, which include, eclectically, the Spy Kids series and From Dusk Till Dawn. In fact, I’m still mad that Spy Kids lied to me, telling me that sharks remain still while sleeping. According to my grandpa, that simply isn’t the case, and if you can’t trust a man who wears a little gold octopus around his neck, who can you trust? Further, I just think he’s kind of an ass. I understand the desire to shun certain Hollywood traditions and techniques, but there is no need to be an ass about it. Ultimately, he strikes me as the sort of ultimately self-indulgent filmmaker typified by his friend Quentin Tarantino. And that’s another thing I didn’t like about this film going in. Special guest director: Quentin Tarantino. The hell is that? I don’t care if you let your friend direct a couple of minutes of your movie, and that’s all he did direct, but it just seems like a bit much to then spread his name all over your advertising. I don’t think I saw a single commercial that didn’t hype Tarantino’s involvement. Then there’s the director’s credit for Frank Miller. True, Miller created, wrote, and drew the Sin City comics and had a huge influence, obviously, on the look of this film, but this is also the guy who wrote RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3. I would be the first to acknowledge his influence on this film and I do think he deserves more credit than “created by” given how slavishly faithful the film is to the originals, but director? I don’t think so.

Still, this film is #71 on my list of all time favorite films, so, clearly, despite my early misgivings, I have to say, this film kicks ass. It may well be the ultimate pinnacle of everything that is film noir. The image and story are black as night with heavy moral gray areas. The action is brutal and the the whole thing drips with barely realized sexuality, which I think is more effective than if the film were to be more sexually explicit. It is also, and this is where it divides audiences, heavily masochistic. This is a man’s world, in the 1950’s sense of the word. Men are the heroes. Women are victims and they need to be protected. Even the whore army of the second third of the film, set up initially as self reliant, needs the direction of a man, Clive Owen, to be effective and just watch how each of these supposedly self confident/reliant prostitutes jump to his orders from the get go. The story and action are all raw as can be. Brutality is the name of the game. This is a world of crime, where the only real heroes are criminals themselves. All of this, of course, echoes the sensibilities of the finest film noir. The portion of this film which really sets it apart from the noir of years earlier, however, is the look. Sin City is an unbelievably stylish film. Primarily, this is a black and white picture, but certain elements are isolated and colored. Sometimes, it is a woman’s lips or a cars exterior, but it can be several other things, including the yellow skin of a deformed killer. Occasionally, the film moves into two dimensional silhouettes, which are absolutely breath taking. The rain falls in stark white comic book slashes and the blood pours out in a fluorescent white. The tremendous visuals and the three plots, none of which last so long as to beg heavy scrutiny, are assisted by tremendous performances from a who’s who of acting talent: Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Clive Owen, Rosario Dawson, Elijah Wood, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rutger Hauer, and, best of all, in a gangbuster performance, Mickey Rourke. True, even after being arrested by the realities of the film, there are elements that don’t quite work. For instance, the prelude and epilogue never quite work and only prove to be confusing. Despite its flaws, Sin City is an unforgiving, stylish, visceral thrill time and again.