Sin City

[triskellian]

I think that's the first time I've walked out of a cinema during a film and not gone back. I made it as far as the bit where Elijah Wood is tied to a tree with the stumps of his limbs oozing blood, and a dog is summoned to eat him alive before deciding that, no, I really wasn't enjoying this, and the gorgeous design in no way made up for the content. This morning I still have a nasty taste in my brain.

I'm trying to work out how Sin City's relentless, vicious violence is worse than that of Kill Bill, which I liked. It may be something to do with the constant nudity and helplessness of all the women and the fact that even the one woman [in the part I saw] who stood up for herself ended up knocked unconscious by the hero 'for her own protection'; it may be something to do with the fact that none of the characters seemed in any way human or real. It may be simply that the section I saw contained several vignettes which were insufficiently linked and none of which made me care what happened next. Which is a shame, 'cos I usually like the interlinked vignette form.

But on the upside, the film may have distracted me from the lure of a permanent account and 100 icons and therefore saved me $150. The fact that the upside of Sin City is that I've got 50 icons less than I might have is probably as big an indicator of my opinion as the fact that I walked out.

Comments

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Sin City (books and film) is an exercise in taking noir as far as it can possibly go - hence the preponderance of casual violence and warped chivalry/misogyny. I like it as an exercise, but I don't like the way it seems to have become a franchise and thus an end in itself.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Sin City (books and film) is an exercise in taking noir as far as it can possibly go - hence the preponderance of casual violence and warped chivalry/misogyny.

In the sense that the Great Purge was an exercise in taking authoritarianism as far as it can possibly go, hence the preponderance of executions?

I haven't read the comics, so this isn't a rhetorical question - is there actually any reason for the casual violence and misogyny, or is the exercise to glorify it as far as Miller can get away with? Is this just "hey, people might quite enjoy being immersed in casual violence and misogyny for a coupla hours, since they're not really allowed to do it in real life any more, 'cepting in Mississippi", or is there a genuine payoff?

Hey, I have a new picture quiz idea! "Postmodernism or Pornography?". All you have to do is choose the correct little tickybox - is the author satirising something or other in a terribly clever way that utterly, like, blows our preconceptions of his medium, or is he just getting his rocks off?