Movie Master

In the black-and-white picture that draws away all the colors, the bright red dress, the dark green sports car, the azure blue eyes, the mustard-yellow skin, and the fluorescent silhouette. Lancelot-Strello After mastering the palette, he used colorful colors as weapons to construct a dark city without laws, morals, and bottom lines on a black and white canvas. Here, crime is the truth, violence is eternal, and evil is the only way out. is normal.

Quentin Tarantino once pushed the charm of his lines to the peak in Pulp Fiction, which is wise and ironic, vivid and profound. Even if the picture is removed, the movie can also be used as a wonderful storytelling. The characters in the story are always talking, always funny, hilarious, scared to death or daring. The dialogue in many movies is only used as a foreshadowing or to promote the plot. No one is willing to tap the charm of the text itself, and Quentin has done this.

Lancelot Strelow pushes the power of the picture to the limit in 'Sin City', and even without the sound, the movie can be enjoyed as a stunning painting of art - not piled with CVFX The shots that come out are exquisite pictures that are conceived frame by frame. From the shooting angle to the setting of the scene, from the use of lighting to the use of color, even the direction of movement and body language of the characters are full of deep meaning. For movies, pictures are an indispensable means of expression, but no one is willing to truly dig out the reflection and aftertaste brought by the picture effects, and Lance has done this.

At the beginning of the movie, there is such a picture, the killer is holding the woman's body in his arms, kneeling and sitting on the top floor of a high-rise building, and the wind and rain are raging. The woman was wearing a long bright red dress, she was breathing heavily, and she didn't die immediately; the killer hugged the woman tightly, as if he was feeling her body temperature carefully, his kneeling posture looked so pious, his eyebrows frowned The loneliness between them is faintly visible in the sharp light; the raindrops fall from the sky and fall around them, gently rippling, and the continuous wind blowing around makes people shudder.

This picture is definitely not that simple. The conscience of the killer is in stark contrast to his cruelty, the death of a woman is in stark contrast to the liveliness of the red dress, and the storm is in stark contrast to the loss of life. If you look carefully, you can also see that under the hazy lights of the city, there is this group fight happening in the background tall buildings, and the people around are watching, and no one calls the police, just like 'Fight Club' Same.

With just one picture, Strelo used color and light to quickly outline the appearance of the city, and even the characters and situations of the two characters. There is no need for lines or soundtrack, the picture already tells the story, everything They are all placed there, waiting for the careful discovery of the audience. Strelow's images always have overtones.

This review comes from the famous Roger Ebert. After Borrowing a Knife, Roger once again wrote a professional review and published it on his personal website. Just this one detail can feel Roger's admiration and love for Lance.

In the comments, Roger played his cards according to common sense and analyzed the image style of Sin City, but the angle of analysis was different, raising the use of lenses in Lance's works to a theoretical level, the first time Let people feel the uniqueness of Lance's works. Except for The Day After Tomorrow, this can be clearly felt in Lance's other three works, which also gives laymen the first real glimpse into why Lance has been nominated for Best Director Oscar for two consecutive years!

However, Roger's evaluation of Sin City is not only that.

'Sin City', adapted from the original manga of the same name, uses a circular structure to tell four chapters, the customer is God, a difficult farewell, brutal killings, and dirty bastards. But this work and the shocking disruption of 'Pulp Fiction' The linear structure is different, the four stories are not split into fragments, rearranged and combined, but in a manner similar to the four parallel stories, from the individual to the whole, and from the whole to the individual, presenting the story of this sinful city. the whole face of the city.

It started with a killing that could not be traced back to the source, opened the prelude to the city of sin, and the flowers of sin slowly bloomed; and ended with a killing of black and white, declaring the complete chaos of the city of sin, extinguishing the last glimmer of hope.

Strelow uses a unique perspective to interpret the city of sin once described by Frank Miller, but endows it with a deeper and heavier practical significance: when justice is no longer a means of resisting evil, when people begin to get used to Ignoring crime, when self-interest starts to override everything else, Sin City is our future.

It's an interesting topic, because we've always believed that the lawless chaos of 'Sin City' couldn't be real, just like we believed that the end of the world in 'The Day After Tomorrow' wouldn't happen, as well. In 1592 we refused to believe that the heliocentric theory was the same.

Looking at City of Sin simply, Strelow shows us a chaotic and dark world, where government agencies are useless and serve only as a means of defense to prevent further spread of violence; The sharp blade of faith has evolved into an excuse to seek self-interest; the heroes of justice are too busy to take care of themselves, and their blood-stained hands have forgotten the so-called justice, and have become a medium that only uses violence to control violence.

The so-called justice, morality and law no longer exist, only the distinction between evil, more evil, and the most evil, and no one is innocent. In the four chapters of the whole movie, there seems to be a character representing justice, but they all end up stifling hope.

The killer in the first chapter acts for the heavens, but kills innocent people; the dirty policeman and innocent girl in the second chapter, but the dirty policeman is forced to commit suicide, and the innocent girl is brutal and bloody; Quasimodo, after his hands were covered with blood, was sent to the electric chair by the law; the former criminal in the fourth chapter turned into a gangster, wiped out the police/police, and built his own system.

Since the movie has only just come out, most readers probably haven't seen it yet, so I'm not going to go too deep into spoilers. But I'll tell you, in all four stories, hope is snuffed out, into darkness, into evil. This is a completely desperate movie, just like the black and white color of the movie.

Sin City is a seemingly colorful but pure and profound movie, based on real and frightening metaphors. After experiencing a visual feast, it can't be calm for a long time.

The topic has returned to the metaphor of reality-what exactly does Sin City reflect? So that brings me back to the title of this review: The Crime Trilogy.

Let's meet Lancelot Strelow's 'City of God' tells a reality: not far from where we live, there is a city of God, where crime and darkness are rampant, and that world is real Yes, and not far away, maybe just around the corner. But we choose to ignore, ignore, indifference, allow or even condone the growth of evil, as if we can confine them in that area, let them fend for themselves, and the problem can be solved.

The little bully, red hair, and Shuai Ned in the story are all like this. They are struggling at the bottom of survival, looking for a way out, but they are repeatedly disappointed, so they finally fall into the vortex of cannibalism and all perish. The only hope is that A Pao escaped from birth. He came to work in a newspaper and became a photographer, trying to let the outside world hear his call.

So, has the society heard the voice of Ah Pao? Murder with a Borrowing Knife gives the answer: No, everyone is busy with their own lives, even too busy to take care of themselves, how can they have time to talk to other people-at least that's how we convince ourselves.

In addition, the work Murder with a Borrowing Sword, which is still being screened in theaters, is one step closer, throwing out a thought-provoking topic, Rashomon. Everyone finds excuses for their actions, so that crime is no longer a crime, just like the war waged by George Bush, as if standing under the banner of justice, all actions can be rationalized and legalized.

In the story, Vincent took killing for granted, and it was just a means of survival; but Max didn't agree, so he fought, so did he succeed in the end? Max and Vincent died together, but Annie, who represented justice, was able to escape. As for Annie's future, the movie did not give an answer until the advent of Sin City.

The indifference and connivance of the society has gradually transformed the City of God in another world into the City of Sin we are living in. This is not a purely commercial film, nor is it an alarmist prophecy, nor is it an unrealistic artistic creation, because in real life, we have witnessed all of this.

Since 1955, there have been incidents of priests/sexual/aggression/violating minors in American Catholicism, and not just one or two cases, as many as eighty-seven cases in the Boston area alone; Knowing that, he not only used the power of the church to suppress the news, and covered up the truth through private reconciliation by lawyers without legal procedures, but also continued to hire priests who made mistakes, transferred them to different dioceses, and continued to amplify the damage.

The most creepy thing is that this is not the first time it has been revealed. We ignored the lawsuits that went to court; we ignored the newspapers; we ignored the large-scale cases that involved more than a dozen victims.

This is the city of God, and this is the city of sin.

During the interview after the premiere of Sin City, I asked Lance a question: Excuse me, how does your so-called social apathy manifest itself? Why do you say that this is not a special behavior of a single individual, but a general behavior?

Lance answered like this: In Borrowing Knife Killing, after the first murder accident happened, Max asked Vincent why he wanted to kill, and Vincent's answer was, Have you heard of Rwanda?