The Visual Technique That Makes ‘Sicario’ Feel So Unsettling

Director Denis Villeneuve’s crime thriller, Sicario, is among his most underrated works despite its critical and audience acclaim. Released in 2015, the film marked the second collaboration between Villeneuve and cinematographer Roger Deakins. Both artists are known individually for their piercingly subtle forms of characterization and direction in their respective practices. When brought together, their work is utterly spellbinding. Today, we’re going to examine a few key moments in the film that bring the blocking of the camera and the blocking of the performers together to subtly communicate the morality of the central characters (or lack thereof).

In the film, Emily Blunt’s FBI agent Kate Macer is recruited for a shadowy drug cartel assignment along with equally shadowy supposed law enforcement officers. She quickly becomes privy to the methods of the government, which she believes is far from morally superior to the organization they’ve been brought in to disarm.

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Josh Brolin’s Character Introduction

YouTuber Mosaics of Time offers a phenomenal analysis of the geometry of the debriefing sequence in the first act of the film. The master wide in particular, as Brolin’s Matt Graver is positioned in the center of the frame, on the opposite end of the table, as well as a divider between the four other men sitting across from him. The dialogue exchanges in this shot make it clear that, despite Graver’s overly casual demeanor and fashion, he is a man the others fear for one reason or another.

With his back turned to the viewer, he asks for a background check on Daniel Kaluuya’s character, lawyer Reggie Wayne. Once he learns of Wayne’s background in law, he tells the men that he doesn’t want any lawyers on their next expedition and settles for the sole recruitment of Kate Macer. This very brief exchange ignites the most powerful visual motif of the film: the ambiguities and straight-up depravities committed by authorities being forcibly removed from a central view. While almost always visible, they are committed just outside the assigned line of sight.

The Prisoner Torture Scene

Once the law enforcement crew brings their suspect back from Juárez, they bring him into an interrogation room with Brolin and Del Toro’s characters, as well as two additional witnesses. Del Toro’s Alejandro begins interrogating the prisoner rather aggressively, which ostensibly prompts the two additional witnesses to step out of the room. However, as they do so, the scene cuts to a medium close-up on Alejandro’s face with the background blurred, but visible. Nearly without breaking his stride, one of the men leaving the room swiftly turns off the video camera in the room before closing the door.

This gives Alejandro the green light to torture the man sitting in front of him as he sees fit. Although once it actually begins, the film cuts our view off entirely, in favor of a slowly zoomed-in shot against the water drain directly in front of the prisoner’s chair.

This marks the first time in the film where an act of violence is completely omitted from our line of sight. The film makes a point in every prior moment of carnage to show it close up, and in its entirety, without nearly any sort of buildup. Choosing now, as a central supposed “good guy” character, goes entirely beyond the bounds of justification for the first time, further highlighting the growing descent into darkness. This is far from the worst act of violence that Alejandro commits throughout the rest of the film; however, in the moments succeeding this one, they become increasingly visible and central to the frame.

The Entrance Into the Tunnel

‘Sicario’Credit: Lionsgate

Much of the mystery of the film is shrouded in this supposed tunnel in El Paso that the cartel may or may not be using to smuggle drugs to various locations. Once the location is confirmed, the entire team converges near the entrance concealed by an abandoned car to forcibly enter and infiltrate. The minimalist, yet sweeping buildup of the score in this sequence, accompanied by the innate dread the central characters are feeling, is enough to send shivers down your spine even without some added visually thematic flair.

In perhaps the most famous shot in the film, various members of the squad, who are solely lit by the almost completely set orange sun, strut in a medium wide down a hill towards the entrance. There are roughly 11 service members in this shot seen strutting down the hill, and the angle does not cut away until each of their heads is completely eclipsed by the darkness below the horizon. From here on out, all sense of morals is completely discarded in favor of the militaristic goals of the US government, and the personal assassination goals of Alejandro’s character. The succeeding twenty minutes of the film are a complete bloodbath, introduced by the final moments of unimpeded natural sunlight.

The closing two scenes of the film technically take place during the daytime, and in partially exterior environments, but the color appears to be almost completely drained from them. Overshadowed by clouds and the distant gunshots that serve as a constant reminder of the seemingly never-ending war that lies ahead, all victories are overshadowed by more destruction.

The film leaves the conclusion of Kate Macer’s character relatively open-ended, as she decides to spare Alejandro in the penultimate scene of the film. Whatever her motivations were for doing so, they could be interpreted in a few different ways. But, it’s clear that despite being forced into formally approving the actions of her government, she still is able to retain some semblance of integrity in the end, which is far more than can be said of most of the characters around her.