Sicario – Rule of Violence

When faced with a brand of criminal that’s stepped outside the confines of human civilization, how far can one play by the rules?

This is the question at the heart of French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario. Telling the story of a joint investigation by American ‘agencies’ into the drug cartel in Mexico, it offers pure cinematic thrills, pulsating action and many a moral quandary. The question being raised isn’t a novelty by any means, but its delivered hard to the viewer due to some excellent writing and fantastic acting.

One need only watch the initial sequence of the movie to get a gist of what the whole ride’s gonna be like. It shows the protagonist’s (Emily Blunt) op in a kidnapping situation in Phoenix, where she ends up finding a lot more than expected. The first few minutes are loaded with surprising moments. However, the director reveals them slowly, building intensity and allowing the characters some breathing space, so we can get into their minds, into the scene and be totally engrossed to feel the full effect of the explosions.

Mr. Villeneuve understands how one makes the audience feel invested in the story – it’s all about the little things. Like in his excellent Prisoners as well, he adds these character tics (like an operative wearing flip flops to an inter-agency meeting) and imperfections (a wrapper strewn around on a chartered plane) that lend the movie some personality. Without these, you’re not making a movie but a summary of one (this may be directed at the atrocious Dilwale which I endured today).

The movie is generally beautiful to look at. Most of the outdoor scenes were shot in New Mexico, and the detailing in the sets is profound. Villeneuve prefers to go in for wide-angled shots for most scenes (and not just for establishing shots). I am a big, big fan of this style. Wide-angled shots and judicious editing are key to my fascination with directors like Coppola, Kubrick and Tarantino. It’s old school, and it’s effective. Sicario employs the wide-angled shot in chase scenes, and during gun-battles as well. A terrific example of this is the protagonist’s first-act journey into the town of Juarez for recovering a criminal.

That sequence, and the depiction of the town is brutally realistic. Now, I’ve never been to Juarez – so why do I think this? Again, it’s the little things – men playing squash, posters of missing people – these details make me feel like I’m getting inside information on a conversation. I’m part of the story now. A lot of movies attempt this, but Sicario gets it – and a lot of other elements – exactly right.

Those other elements, like I mentioned above, comprise of the three leads, and the words they speak. Emily Blunt is pitch-perfect as the FBI-operative with innocent ‘American ears’ who serves as a mirror to the audience’s discoveries along this brutal journey. Her character is essentially meant to represent the fragility of human nature in the face of unmitigated violence. Just watch her in the scene right after the initial Phoenix sequence, as she flinches from the water in her shower – utterly disturbed by the horrors she has witnessed. Her characters sees a lot more – from either side of the war on drugs – and is completely defeated at the end. She realizes that, try as she might, the regular rules of engagement, a semblance of order, procedure and structure, just cannot be imposed on this stark reality. The parallels between Sicario and Apocalypse Now, in terms of Blunt’s character arc, as well as the broader moral undertones, are unmistakable. Read Chris Ryan’s excellent article on this proposition.

We also have Josh Brolin playing an inscrutable but charming CIA-man, who’s upfront about not wanting lawyers on his team (“don’t want too many questions”). He wants a pawn out of Blunt. That’s all. He has neither the time nor the motivation to explain how exactly a domestic American agency is trooping all the way to Mexico to apprehend a gangster.

And then there’ s the hitman – Benicio del Toro, or Puerto Rican Brad Pitt. He’s inhabiting a role that’s meant to silently convey anger, weariness and experience without exposition – and he’s more than up for it.

The various set-pieces in the movie are proficiently staged and lead to nail-biting tension. All of this leads up to the hitman’s (or Sicario’s) climactic confrontation with the ‘final boss’, who’s at the dinner table with his family, enjoying a quiet meal. It’s at odds with the world he creates, this measure of civilization against the savagery that people like him perpetuate. The hitman says as much before shooting his sons and wife to death in front of the boss. Then, after he has witnessed this unspeakable misery in his last moments, he’s shot as well. The rules of engagement are non-existent.  ‘The boundaries have moved’.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen – A Piscean Romance

Hollywood producers, it is said, are always on the lookout for ‘high-concept’ movies, or movies that can be explained in a single sentence as a what-if scenario. Evidently, this trend began with the original summer blockbuster that asked, ‘What if a shark started attacking beachgoers?’ Soon, it became common for writers to pitch their ideas to the big studios this way. “What if dinosaurs came back to life?” “What if global warming melted all the ice caps so that there was only water left on the surface of the earth?” “What if ghosts lived in the same realm as we do?” Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a ‘high-concept’ movie too, in exactly the way that its title explains, although it isn’t blockbuster material. I suspect that the initial ridiculous sounding titular idea was brainstormed upon to figure out how it would work out in the real world – which is what the aforementioned films did as well.

The movie appealed to me because of the sensitive and respectful way in which it was narrated, and the great deal of warmth and sincerity that is to be found in its screenplay. The author of the epistolary book that inspired the movie, Paul Torday, passed away late last year, but left behind a unique, and potentially unfilmable work. It was left to Simon Beaufoy, the extremely talented screenwriter of Slumdog Millionaire and The Full Monty to translate a series of fictitious government correspondences into a convincing screenplay. But it has to be said that such material grants one great leeway in reinterpreting the characters and their drives.

Beaufoy also succeeds in the moments where the characters relate questions of life, spirituality and even the British class system to salmon. These exchanges occur primarily between the Sheikh (played charmingly by Amr Waked ), and the lead character of Alfred Jones (essayed by Ewan McGregor at the top of his game). Reflective of the spirit of the movie, they come across as the musings  that fishermen would have, as they wait hours on end for a bite. It is an incredible quality of the movie, that there is such great investment in the characters, and we are willing to take these musings seriously to contemplate about them . A few individual scenes in the movie stand out for their symmetry – like the one where a stoic Ewan McGregor finally learns to accept change and runs against the direction of the crowds, a scene that is later repeated with, you know it, salmon. Although a lot of critics had issues with the movie taking itself seriously, I’d say that it is deeply rewarding if you do so, as at least a temporary romantic.