Sicario

Apart from the poster, I knew nothing of Sicario going in. It dropped on my radar on release, and criticism thrown its way was glowing. It seemed to be a shoo-in for a lot of people's Top lists of the year. With that in mind, I decided to throw caution to the wind and sit down to it, hoping upon hope I wasn't about to experience the same cultural alienation I experienced watching The Hurt Locker, thinking, "Yeah, he loves bombs and can't leave the bombs. I get it. What am I missing?" Be careful what you hope for, folks. About halfway through Sicario, I took a bit of time to lift my chin off the armrest, open my eyes, and think about what I was watching. It most reminded me of Denis Villeneuve's Prisoners, a film that I reviewed in 2013 as "the most expertly crafted episode of Law & Order I've ever seen." It felt like Prisoners, but with a Roger Deakins impersonator behind the camera as opposed to the man himself. Imagine my surprise to reach the credits and find out who the director and cinematographer were. Now, not to say that my opinion holds any sort of weight, worth or merit, but if I can pick a director based on a film's superb aesthetic that is entirely devoid of substance, is that a good thing for said director? The critics and numbers would indicate that the answer is, "Yes", but let me have a crack whilst my soapbox continues to support my weight at telling you the danger of celebrating subtlety without fully looking at what it's hiding.

Sicario might be about a lot of things. That's sort of one of Denis Villeneuve's strengths - his films have no shortage of symbolism tucked into every nook and cranny it can fit. Britt Hayes over at Birth.Movies.Death. wrote this excellent piece that puts forth the notion that this film's central theme is rape, and it works so well because it only allows that truth to be conveyed through the abstract; that the examination of the psychological fallout of rape only exists within the literal examination of an FBI agent getting fucked over with obfuscation of information by her CIA counterparts. Other critiques of the film have gone slightly more literal, instead using the film's synopsis of Emily Blunt being mercilessly, unflinchingly used by the aforementioned CIA in spite of her kicking and screaming with her staunch idealistic beliefs as a metaphor for the systemic persecution and smothering of women in the patriarchal juggernaut that remains modern society. Both are valid, and I'm not about to say that the film isn't about those things. My problem with this angle is the idea that cinema is supposed to challenge what it raises, or at the very least, offer insight or solutions to the problems. Sicario does not. Sicario raises the idea of blanket emotional and professional persecution of women to then, in a way, kind of say, "Well, that's just how it is. Deal with it." You can say I'm missing the point, but when it comes to rhetoric in film, there are really only two places to look:
1. What a film says about something.
2. How a film sees something.
So what is Sicario saying about Emily Blunt and her plight? That her ideals have no place here, and if she doesn't learn to play ball with the real boys, she's either out or dead. How does Sicario see Emily Blunt and her plight? As entirely, mercilessly, futile. The film doesn't end with Emily Blunt working out a way around her oppressors that both provides her strength and affirmation of her beliefs and the narrative satisfaction of seeing notions of 'good' and 'evil' rewarded and punished appropriately. No, Emily Blunt loses, the bad guys win, and to add insult to injury, she is forced at gunpoint by one of her CIA oppressors to sign a statement saying everything they did was on the level.

I've gone on the record before laying out praise for a film that brings a complicated social problem to the surface only to say that it exists and is a problem, which you could argue is the exact same reason I'm not dishing out praise for Sicario. The difference between this and Mystery Road, however, is that Mystery Road brings its social problem to the table as a problem. Sicario does not. Because the part of this film that much of the glowing praise for it doesn't take into account is the political aspect that runs parallel to its social one. The CIA has brought Emily Blunt's FBI Agent into the mix to "supervise" the CIA's attempts to bring to justice a cartel boss in Mexico, following an IED explosion during a drug raid on an immigrant household on US soil. I use quotation marks on supervise because what they really want is someone weak to manipulate, so they can tick the representation box whilst bending and outright breaking every humanitarian rule in the book to not bring in the cartel boss, but give Benicio Del Toro's freelance mercenary the opportunity to exact brutal, bloody revenge on the fella that murdered his family. And it's here that the aforementioned rules of cinema rhetoric return. What does this film say about the actions of the CIA? That border relations between the US and Mexico are complicated, and paranoid slaughter is an acceptable response to that, and fuck your naive ideologies. How does the film see the actions of the CIA? As necessary responses to the situation at hand. And perhaps it's here that Sicario and I just head down different roads. I'm not in support of a film that seems to exist to encourage complacency in the general public regarding border relations because of a vocal, violent minority that seems compelled to fuck it up for everyone. I'm of the mind that there might be a more effective solution than utilising subterfuge to blind most to the blanket prejudice that breeds a mass in support of an iron law that starkly contrasts 'us' with 'them'. Having said that, if we go by Sicario's logic, a bleeding heart dipshit like me better keep my hippie hole shut lest I cop a bullet in the head. And not being one to stand by my ideals when being threatened with violence, allow me to conclude this review by saying Sicario is great, and fuck the Mexicans.