Villeneuve’s third American film Sicario, is when he started to get the ball rolling to get to the level of auteur. You may ask what is an auteur? To put it simply, say if you watch one director’s film on a marathon for a whole weekend. You’ll get to see little bits of visual symbolism, and motifs pop up. With Denis, he has a specific look in his films that looks gritty. Especially dealing with a subject matter such as drug cartels. All in all, Sicario is considered one of 2015s best films.
1. Kate Mercer
The way the film starts has us invested with the whole plot and with the main character. Kate plays an FBI agent in Arizona. While on a routine drug bust, a sudden explosion kills two agents. In the aftermath, she’s invited to join Matt Graver and Alejandro Gillick in a joint government task force to stop a cartel.
It would be so easy to mess this movie up plot wise. Such as making the movie too nationalistic and jingoistic when showing the Americans beating the cartels. Instead, what the movie does so eloquently well is to show the shady side of government. As to why Kate starts to question her role in the task force.
Emily Blunt does a great job portraying the idealistic agent that slowly starts to question the task force’s intentions. The moment where she meets both Matt and Alejandro, she is exposed to different sides of sketchiness. For one, the first interaction shows Matt wears mostly relaxed clothing when dealing with the cartels. I believe, it’s to symbolize the casualness he sees in the danger. Perhaps seeing the cartels as a walk in a park. Whenever the action is too close for Kate, he's all the more willing to let her walk.
For the other, Alejandro is mysterious. He dresses nicely when Kate sees him in one of the bases. At the start, he tells her not to trust anyone. And boy does that permeate throughout the whole film. This thing of trust truly defines her since she is later shown the true nature of the objective. Right down to the force using her as bait. He’s the most interesting part in the whole film as we see more of him going forward. And honestly, one would think it be neat to have a film just about him.
2. Neo-Western
This film is one of the many representatives of the Neo-Western sub-genre. That means that it’s the contemporary evolution of the western genre. One of the characteristics that is evident is the use of cars and trucks as the stand in for horses. And the cartels are the stand ins for, well you know. So far, the sub-genre has been gaining some steam as of now, with hits like No Country for Old Men, Brokeback Mountain, and Logan to name a few.
One scene that is the best visual example I can think of is when the task force is on the road to Juarez and back to El Paso. There’s so much tension in that scene that it keeps you on edge since any moment can be lit up like a powder keg. One moment that reminds me of the classic western film The Searchers is when the task force’s vans are driving around. Then a Mexican vehicle is driving parallel a block of them.
The action in the movie is grounded. It’s not all action with guns blazing. Everything that is being presented is called Verisimilitude. Which is just a fancy word of saying it looks realistic. Especially in the scene where the three main characters are standing by on border crossing road. The gunfight is brief, which is to be expected since we’re seeing trained soldiers going against cartel fodder.
Again, and I hate to sound like a broken record, but when the actual task force is assigned to go into a drug tunnel is when they bust out the night vision. We see two types of night vision, one where it's green and thermal with a black and grey look to it. Little things like that immerse the whole situation for the audience to take a brief glimpse of a shady government task force. And I feel it’s to separate both Kate and the soldiers apart due to technological advantages.
3. Too Close to Home
While watching the film, there are brief glimpses of where we hear gunfire that sound like fireworks. It’s the popping sound that really immerses the viewer into getting the feel of just how dangerous that world is. And with that I got to experience that. Weeks ago I heard those same popping sounds across the river. It’s one of those things where art can imitate life, but it was too close to home.
4. Overall
Sicario is one of the best neo-western films I’ve seen. For some inexplicable reason it got a sequel, and third one has been announced. I think it says a lot when a sequel is so far removed from what this film was going for. Like it’s a whiplash stylistically speaking. I haven’t seen it, but watching the trailer shows that Villeneuve was not attached
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.