April Showers: Sicario
Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 11:30PM 
In April Showers, Team TFE looks at our favorite waterlogged moments in the movies. Here's Chris on Sicario (2015).
Sicario was one of last year's most underappreciated and perhaps misread films. Audience responses ranged from breathless praise (yours truly is guilty) to passive disregard to outright frustration. However, it's three Oscar nominations (Cinematography, Original Score, Sound Editing) are inarguables of the film's immaculate (if punishing) craft.
One of the major qualms against the film is its central characterization in Kate Macer - a tightly wound and multilayered Emily Blunt at her very best. Plenty have complained that she's too passive and changes little - but that ignores the fact that she's a woman who stands her ground and fights for her beliefs despite being up against forces stronger and more unshakable than her solitary point of view. She's swimming upstream and being pulled under fast...
The film's early shower scene follows the film's first brushes with violence. It's a visually memorable moment (among many from master director of photography Roger Deakins) that hints at what's to come for Kate.
The blood flowing from Kate's head is as brutal and matter-of-fact as the rest of the film's violence. The comfort of the shower or attempt to wash away the aftermath is as truncated and swept away as any other momentary escape from the viciousness. Kate and the audience only have a short beat to find their bearings before being thrust back into the serpentine danger of the ongoing war on drugs.
The final shot of the scene promises the consuming world Kate is about to being enveloped within - the fog between the right and wrong, noble and effective. Kate's clear vision of righteousness is to become as hazy as her own reflection, her implacable will tested and compromised until that very haze is a shroud that she carries. Leave it to Deakins and Villeneuve to make a pick up shot as brief as this be so foreboding - and gloomily gorgeous.
Reader Comments (3)
I fucking love this movie too! Emily Blunt should've been nominated last year, although, yes, Kate's characterization is too passive in the big play.
It seems similar to the one from Gone Girl but the tone is shockingly contrastual.
This was one of my favorites of last year. I understand why someone wouldn't like it, but I loved it. Benicio and Emily should have been nominated.
I love Sicario so much. I still wish it would've taken that cinematography Oscar.