ake the films Dick Tracy and Unbreakable, season them up with a little Tarantino, Pulp Fiction style, add some an outstanding cast, and oh yeah, introduce an entirely new form of black and white, and you might get close to imagining the new film Sin City directed by Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, and guest Quentin Tarantino.
Sin City is loaded with famous actors like Bruce Willis, Josh Hartnett, Benicio Del Toro (the narc in Traffic), and let us not forget Jessica Alba. However, these are just the toppings of the film; the real ingredients come from the genius mind of Frank Miller, the head director. Frank Miller is mostly famous for his comic books, like Sin City, and is well known as a Hollywood screenplay writer (he wrote Robo Cop 2). Even though he is not the usual director – per se – thank god that he was the main director for this flick. Without him, this film could not pull off the comic look.
There is an amazing comic book element present in this film’s style. The film is based off of three super hero villains that seek justice, Western style. Through each segment, the heroes are surrounded by outstanding color themes or motifs. For instance, the only red blood we see in the entire film mostly gushes out from the heroes’ wounds.
This film has more B-negative blood than both Texas Chainsaw Massacre films and Saw combined. What is different in Sin City is how it presents the blood to the viewer in a neutralized fashion. More specifically, most of the blood we see is white or yellow (still B-negative). Its about time they reinvented blood, our society is already desensitized to the red stuff.
The most interesting element of this entire film is that it has reached a new stylistic realm in film through its new form of black and white imaging. This is a black and white that we’ve never seen before; it has a radioactive glow to it. For you film majors, its chiaroscuro lighting on acid. On top of this not yet named style of black and white, there is a strategic use of color. For example, a character’s entire body is completely black and white while their eyes are blue. Neat-O!
The only complaints I have on this film are the ways it presents females, in fact I can’t recall one female part that wasn’t a “dyke” or a prostitute, or both. Women are not completely repressed, they actually control Old town, a red-light district where prostitution is the main commodity. At least there is some power being negotiated here.
This film is the next Hollywood classic mainly because it introduces a new, ‘sick’ form of black and white, and its story and plot are air tight. There are a couple points taken off because of how women are presented, but this is nothing new in Hollywood cinema.
