Ooh, ooh
ooh! Look, another historic moment. I HAVE FINALLY WATCHED SIN CITY. I have
been banging on about this for years. How I didn’t get round to it
before is virtually incomprehensible – even to me, and I’m usually quite good
at figuring out why I haven’t done things. This was the last film remaining
that Quentin Tarantino (yes him again, if you’re not a fan, deal with it) is
vaguely associated with from a directoral (is this a word? Mom?) stance that I
hadn’t seen yet. Now I have. The world can rest in peace – as it were. The film
is of course technically a film by Robert Rodriguez who is apparently a great friend
of Quentin Tarantino’s. Quentin Tarantino is a guest director here along with
Frank Miller (the writer of the comics the film was adapted from) who is cited
as director. Now, fair warning. You know Rodriguez. You know Tarantino. Yes
there is violence. Yes there are classic “old school” movie genres running through
a very, very strange terrain. Yes, the films are very much “boys toys” as it
were, what with the imagery and that. Now, as you also know, I lap this stuff
up by the bucketful and ask for seconds. Incomprehensibly to me, some people do
not. If you are one of those people I fail to comprehend, you can easily pass
on Sin City. I won’t blame you. I’ll just be sad you’re missing a brilliant
film.
Welcome to
Sin City. The name alone holds a clue. I said to look out for “old school”
ladies and gents, and the “school” we’re in this round is film noir. A world
where the dames are beautiful and deadly, the guys are either hardened good
guys with one foot in the underworld or dastardly villains. It is night time,
it is cold and we roam the even colder streets, trying to get to know the
inhabitants of the city. We have a scary giant who is looking to avenge the
only woman who ever showed him affection. We have a cop who puts his entire
reputation on the line to save a little girl from a paedophile. We have a hit
man after his next buck. And of course, we have a vigilante cop. All these
characters come together in the “sewage pit” known as Sin City in a tale as
dark as the night itself…
Before you
say anything, trust me, there are more reasons than one for this film to have
become so popular. I am at a tiny bit of a loss as to interpreting them in
conjunction with their original “manuscripts” i.e. the comics. Of course I won’t
even get started on the actual images themselves as Sin City’s images have
become pretty iconic in their own right. Suffice it to say that the mood of the
film very much matches the style of the images. It is very, very much like a
comic book “come to life” as it were. So there you go. If you like comic books,
that alone should spur you on. That and the rather marvellous way all the
seemingly disparate stories come together. I promise you, you will NOT see that
one coming.
But then of
course there is the film noir side of things. Now, I’m not quite sure what the
general opinion is of film noir. I have a sneaking suspicion it is regarded as
rather passé. And it is true that simple binaries of black and white, good and
bad are rather outdated these days. Understandably so, we have come to terms
with the fact that the world is more of a “grey” place then black and white and
this is reflected in everything, be it our entertainment or our politics. But I
don’t know. There is – go on, admit it – a part in all of us which, when left
unchecked, paints the world in those two colours. Really “evil” baddies that
can be destroyed by the “good guy”. A good guy with some token “black” in him –
this is Sin City after all, you can never completely escape the evil in the air
– but whose heart is basically set on doing the right thing. Go on. You like
it. Admit it to yourself if not to me. And go and watch the darned movie
already. You have half a hundred reasons at least by now…
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