Sin City
—Photos
—About this Film pdf
—Spiritual Connections
So I’m sittin’ here in this movie theater. It’s quiet. Dark. Illuminated only by the projector—spinning its myriad of previews—which cuts through the darkness like glass through a fist. And it smells the way a theater should smell. And the audience . . . well, there’s no time to wax poetic. I got a job to do. Someone’s gotta review this thing—and I guess it’s gonna be me. Hell, I’ve done it before. This is how my film review might sound if I were to mimic the hard-boiled, first-person-narrative style of Rodriguez’s film-noir Sin City. You’ve heard that sort of thing before: all grit and attitude, just like this movie as a whole. But, just like there’s always something lurking beneath the seemingly flat surface of characters who talk that way, there’s something more lurking beneath the dark, stylized vision of Sin City.
Now, I could start by praising the amazing cast—they were all brilliant. I could praise Rodriguez’s ability to make a movie that looks and sounds like a comic book. I could just explain how ultimately entertaining the movie was to me. But, right up front, since everyone will be talking about it, let me talk about the violence factor. This film is uber-violent. Shockingly so. By the end, I actually found myself desensitized to it, much as I was by the end of Mel Gibson’s Passion. Honestly, I wouldn’t have guessed that one movie could have such a predilection for severed heads, groin injuries, people being eaten, and the like. And with the sparse use of color and punchy sound effects, the blood is bloodier, and the blows more visceral.
With Gibson’s film, however, the violence, shock-value, and desensitizing effect are all easily understood within the context of the purpose of the film. According to the story, Jesus is suffering for us. According to the story, we need to see how real and shocking that suffering was. And as witnesses, we long to see the end of his suffering—we long for mercy—because the extent of his suffering and mercy has been made so clear. With Sin City, it isn’t as easy to see the point of all the violence, but it’s there all the same.
First of all, the movie does require violence. Which is to say, the interwoven tales of the movie really couldn’t be told without it. Like Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Sin City is best described as a collection of short films, sometimes split into smaller fragments, with recurring characters, all based around similar themes. Basically, the movie is Mickey Rourke’s tale of vengeance for the prostitute he loved, followed by Clive Owen’s tale of violent advocacy for the women of Old Town, bookended by Bruce Willis’ tale of sacrifical love for Nancy Callahan, bookended by two short tales of Josh Hartnett as a hitman. Like Pulp Fiction, none of these tales work without the violence—it is, put most simply, one of the themes of the film.
But do the stories require such shocking violence? On the surface, purely in terms of the story, it seems like the answer is “no.� A lot of it, frankly, feels like violence for the sake of violence—and just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should. However, the purpose of this film is not just to tell a story. It’s also to be faithful to Frank Miller’s source material, and to create a particular vision. So, in terms of the whole purpose of the film, it would seem that the shock-value of the violence is, again, understandable.
Of course, as above, the result of all the shocking violence is desensitization. In Gibson’s movie, this effect serves a purpose. Does it here? Again, taking the movie as a whole, I think the answer is “yes.� Sin City is just that—SIN city. It’s a place overrun by political corruption, crooked cops, prostitution, all manner of criminal behavior, etc. It’s the kind of place where characters are punched, shot in the back, or even killed when you least expect it. The very nature of such a place, for people actually living there, would be oppressive and smothering and draining and . . . desensitizing. I believe the violence is there, in part, to put the audience in the mental framework of the characters. This way, by the end, when Bruce Willis makes his final choice, we see it coming. We’re not surprised. We don’t shield our eyes. We just take it, because that’s the way things are here. We’ve become citizens of Sin City.
And so what is left under all this thematic use of violence? Is there really something else lurking under the hard-boiled, uber-violent exterior? Oh, yes. While violence is definitely a theme of the movie, there is something else that emerges: the movie’s three main male protagonists live out redemptive tales, all having to do with women. Despite the pervasive immorality of Sin City, they each embody a comic-book-hero code of ethics—a code that values things like courage, loyalty, self-sacrifice, punishment of evil, protection of innocence, and so on. By the end of their tales, the women have been avenged, or saved, or protected, and the men have been redeemed by their adherence to this code, despite the surrounding sin, despite the violence, despite corruption even of things supposedly incorruptible.
Because of this theme, and other elements of the film, some may detect in Sin City a trace of misogyny. After all, the vast majority of female characters in this movie are prostitutes, they all need help from men, they’re all ultimately sexualized. Indeed, I believe that Hartnett’s hitman character, in his killing of a female character at the beginning and end of the movie, is meant to leave us with a sense of the continued vulnerability of women to men, despite the tales in between. But while I agree that Sin City does present a particular view of gender roles, the women of Sin City are—despite some empowerment—essentially just modern-day versions of Medieval “damsels in distress,� waiting on their knights to save them. Accordingly, the film twice makes reference to Arthur’s knights of the round table.
Now, if that is misogyny, then this movie is misogynistic. But I would rather choose to see the positive side of this damsel/knight characterization. There is nothing wrong with a person, male or female, needing another person. There is also nothing wrong with men wanting to play the role of “protector of women,� or with women wanting the protection of men. Certainly things aren’t always this way, but if that is the vision of this movie, it can certainly be valid without being misogynistic. Actually, I feel that this vision is not only valid, but very spiritually insightful. It reminds me of the Bible’s instruction to husbands to “love your wife as Christ loved the church�—of the characterization of Christ as sacrificial hero and husband, and us as his “bride� and “damsel in distress.�
So, are Sin City's violent leading men like God? And are we like the leading ladies, needing help in the midst of Sin City? I believe that’s one way to see it. I believe that this film, at its core, underneath the violent veneer, is yet another story about people’s undying sense that things are not right with the world. That there is, in Shakespeare’s words, “something rotten in the state of Denmark.� That we all, in fact, live in Sin City. And, going further, it’s also yet another story about our undying sense that we need to be saved from such a place, because we won’t be able to do it alone. That we all need a knight in shining armor. That we all need God. As such, Sin City is a great movie to rip apart, bare hands bloodied, and look at from the inside-out—a metaphor that I hope would make Rodriguez and Miller proud.
—Overview
—Photos
—About this Film pdf
—Spiritual Connections
