Tuesday, March 25, 2008

No Country for Old Men on DVD






No Country for Old Men, now available on DVD, is one of those Coen brothers films that doesn't miss a beat, doesn't miss a trick, and which makes use of each rhythm it invents and each trick it employs in service to the story with the sort of mastery that makes you forget that you're viewing something that was meticulously constructed. Seamless, in other words, as was their Fargo, a comedy that worked in broad, slowly applied strokes of the brush that inspected the ticks and quirks of the characters as they headed for their eventual comeuppance. But for all the joy the brothers have given me , there is something a measure overdone, over the top and overwritten in their movies, brilliant as they may be. The aspect of homage is never far from most of their efforts, and there was a lingering hope that there might be a project they'd undertake that wouldn't have the knowing wink, the grotesque elaboration on genre iconography. The Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name was the ideal choice; like the Coens, McCarthy has a world that becomes meaningless and cruel once the vanity of elaborate expectation are violently removed, but where the Coens allow the distance and the space to appreciate their joke and fall into the comfort of being let in on the joke, McCarthy gives no quarter, no comfort, and sees nothing to laugh at. It is a tragedy remains tragic, intended for the reader (and viewers) to appreciate what they have for as long as they're privileged to have it.The Coens in turn offer no quarter, which has effect of ramping up the tension, the creepiness. This film is a wonderfully constructed work of unnerving verve. Hubris is a striking theme in the Coens' movies, and it appears again in their new thriller, where one has the simplest of conflicts, a trailer-living Vietnam vet comes across a bloody drug deal gone bad and tracks down the two million dollars that was meant to seal the deal, and finds himself, through random occurrence, sheer chance and whimsical decision, being tracked himself by a hired killer.

The center of the film are these two characters, the vet (Josh Brolin) thinking he can outwit and kill the stalker seeking to put him on ice, and the killer (Javiar Bardam), a force of nature who cannot die, will not be deterred, detoured or delayed. His character, oddly named Antoine Chigurh ("Soo-gar"),fulfills his task required by the detection of the unwarranted pride a protagonist assumes for himself; he is the force that one does not see coming, that thing that cannot be stopped nor will wait for you. Chaos and carnage are his sole purposes. Brolin's character, named Llewelyn, has no idea what he has decided to go up against, and from here one is aware that the stage is set for the inevitable tragedy that will come and cannot be halted. The Coens have an outstanding sense of being able to slow down and draw out a scene, to have a thumb on the turntable, so speak, as they prolong an agonizingly nerve rattling sequence --Josh Brolin's character is chased across a river by a hell hound pit bull which comes mere seconds from tearing his throat out, a scene causing audible gasps both times I saw the film--and still keep to intrigued with the goings on and the detailed bits of business the characters involve themselves in.

Clarity with an unforgiving reality principle one theme in play, with this movie being a four way split between those who have no idea the cruel game they're in: Chigurh’s citizen victims, those like Llewelyn who think they can avoid or change what is inevitable, the uncompromising destructive force that is the killer Chigurh; and , in a moving and subtly, softly underplayed performance by Tommy Lee Jones, the growing awareness of a cocky sheriff who realizes that the murders in his district are without reason, logic or even passion, and that this represents a sacrifice he is unwilling to make. Destiny is another theme here, and Jones' sheriff loses his nerve and retires. Late in the film, restless and not sure of what to do now that he's left an occupation he was fated to have by family tradition, he recounts recent dreams with their vague symbolism of what direction his life was meant to take. One wonders on this aspect of the tragedy, the correspondence of action creating purpose and definition. The sheriff may have saved his life by retiring, but has he robbed himself of his purpose in the life he wanted to keep. He is caught in an ambiguity, and it's a toss up at this point which is worse, a death in service to professional duty, or living with an unsettled issue no consoling will allay.

The encroaching despondency on Jones' face as he tells his wife of his dreams, where a wise ass smirk once was now replaced with a tight, brave smile that cannot disguise a man who voluntarily relinquished his grasp on self-certainty, is its own unique tragedy. Only the craggy and creviced face of Tommy Lee Jones could have evoked the inner broodings that tear at the soul, and only his voice, cracked, rough, and choked on dust , could have managed to bring out the melancholy contained in his elliptical monologue without once raising his voice or gesturing wildly. Javier Bardem's virtuoso turn as the psychopath Chigurh , as well, is among the most memorable presences to inhabit the screen in awhile. Self-contained, virtually expressionless, given to odd bits of logic and rituals, he is not a character but a personification of every foul thought of vengeance and fury one has ever imagined in their life. He is not someone you meet, but rather a catastrophe that happens to you and hope you survive.

5 comments:

  1. Excellent analysis. I was gasping for some break in the tension. There was none. After I saw the movie, I didn't want to think about anything for a long time.

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  2. This is one of the things that make this a marked departure for the Coens;besides being their first adaptation from a novel , it is also the first movie of theirs where there isn't a bit of comic relief, something tangential and humorous (though darkly) that gave you a chance to collect your wits. In that since NCFOM was merciless, providing us with a prolonged vision of evil as unstoppable force that will not explain it's reason for being malicious.

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  3. I watched it last night. It just reinforces my belief that life is meaningless and futile, and that Death is the force that bears down on us, bleeding all the colour from our days with its merciless inevitability. With the oppressive terror of the unstoppable Antoine Chigurh leaning on the other characters' every breath, all the beauty in the movie is in its moments, in the actors' gestures, in their delivery of the perfect dialogue—just as it is in life.

    It's an astonishing movie. I think I'll watch it again tonight.

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  4. I have not yet seen the movie, but I remember well the book being like a hard blow to the solar plexis.

    It was my first work by Cormack McCarthy, who some someone had recommended to me. So, while cooling my heels at the Denver Airport on a layover a couple of years ago, I picked it up on impulse, over the escapist fare I would normally select for such events.

    Jesus! I was totally unprepared for the relentlessness of the book -- but I could not put it down -- upon arriving at my destination, I stayed up most of the night finishing it! Then there was that matter of trying to fall asleep after that!

    I have since read a couple more of his books (All the Pretty Horses, and The Road) which also are pretty intense -- but for these I was prepared.

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  5. Anonymous10:59 AM PDT

    it's cormac mccarthy, no k. there seems to be something contradictary about mccarthy's putative nihilism and chirgurh's inevitable advance. i don't really agree with your reading of chigurh; he's no judge holden; it's not he who eventually gets Llewelyn, but Mexican gangsters.

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