Week 13. Comments on Frank Miller’s Sin City, 2005, Frank Miller & Robert Rodriquez

Sin City has an unreal setting where everything is so corrupted and violent. It is a hardly believable future to a saint person. Nonetheless, I feel that the effective use of dark lighting and black and white film really added an extra depth to the film; making it believable for the moments that we were watching ( I say this because the plot is so out there I’m not going to worry about getting diced up on my way to Uni).

During the scene where Kevin, the psychotic antagonist is being feed to his dog, the effective use of lighting and a black and white filter really adds an extremely gruesome feeling to the scene. Opposed to using a monochrome filter, the black and white filter projects a very unsettling and raw mood to the film. This almost depicts the basic instincts of a dog; something is clearly labeled as food, or not food. Through the use of this limited color, I am able to imagine how brutal and gross how a situation like this in real life would be.

I think it is evident that one of the key techniques of design in the film Sin City is its use of limited color and lighting. Without it, the city of danger lurking around every corner would seem far less threatening, and the real horrors of an alternate reality would be hardly imaginable.