Matthew's Journal

I went to see Sin City yesterday with many LJ-enabled folk. I've not read any of the books, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect (other than from the trailers).

It is, lets face it, a pretty violent film, and I thought I could detect Tarantino's hand in places (he was the executive director). It had many nods to the comic-book genre, including cars that fly over bumps, being almost entirely in black and white (with effective use of a few colour highlights), and occasional reverse-video moments. I could generally follow the plot, and in some ways it felt like a book's plot - tight and well-structured. There were some excellent black humour moments and a few suprises and twists that made me jump, I must admit. A very black film, moody, and effective. Pace Steven Kitson, I think this was one of those films where not knowing the plot helped somewhat: you wouldn't jump so much if you knew what was coming...

There were a couple of plot points that confused, me though, which maybe the reader can help with:

Firstly, why does Marv help in the interrogation of Hartigan? I mean, there's obviously a non-linear time-line, since Marv is dead by the time Hartigan gets out of jail (he gets killed after killing Cardinal Roark), but I can't see him playing along with that.

Secondly, right at the end when Hartigan arrives at the Roark farm, Kevin is quite clearly there, but doesn't do anything. This is also obviously earlier time-wise than the Marv thread (since we see Marv blow up the farm and kill Kevin), but why doesn't Kevin intervene?