Sin City

I saw the movie Sin City recently and was absolutely awestruck by its radical departure from conventional directing. The entire film is in black-and-white with judicial splashes of color. For example, in the opening sequence we see a woman looking out at a bleak cityscape of skyscrapers from a large balcony of a tall building. All is in black-and-white save for her dress, which is a bright red made all the more vibrant by the stark background. She turns and her lipstick is the same red color against a black-and-white face. I found the effect quite striking.

The film is based on Frank Miller's graphic novels. At first I thought they were called graphic novels was because of their graphic nature (graphic violence and nudity), but now I've come to the conclusion that a graphic novel is an illustrated novel, basically a comic book in novel form. I did little research and found thatthe reason the movie was done in black-and-white was to reproduce as faithfully aspossible the original artwork in the novels; they themselves are in a graphic arts style black-and-white.

The movie was the brainchild of Robert Rodriguez, writer and director of Desperado, Once upon a Time in America, and all of the Spy Kids movies as well as others. He and Frank Miller directed the movie after Rodriguez persevered in grinding down the reluctant Miller to take a look at his take on bringing the graphic novel to the screen. Bruce Willis is the biggest name in the list of credits followed by Benicio del Toro (who received an Academy award for supporting actor in Traffic), Mickey Rourke, and Powers Boothe. It was Mickey Rourke that stole the show with his character Marv. It was if the character were tailor made for Rourke. There were a couple of other familiar faces: Brittany Murphy from Just Married and Uptown Girls and Nick Stahl from HBO's Carnivale.

I found Sin city to be the most innovatively entertaining film since Pulp Fiction, which reminds me; Quentin Tarantino was a guest director. Now I don't know what a guest director is--have never heard the term--but I'm guessing that he did some of the scenes. Be forewarned: there is graphic violence and nudity but it is not gratuitous; it is intrinsic to the story, as with Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, another movie on my A list. For those of you who see the film and like it, you'll be glad to hear that there is a Sin City 2 scheduled to be released later this year. I will be anxiously awaiting it.