No Country for Old Men ****
Wow. What an amazing film. Yes, I am a big Coen Brothers fan. How can you not be? Brother Where Art Thou? Fargo. The Big Lebowski. Barton Fink. Miller's Crossing. Raising Arizona. The Hudsucker Proxy. But this film had me holding my breath. So much came together so well. Gorgeous cinematography and, as usual, counterpoint perfect editing. And layered, mesmerizing performances. Tommy Lee Jones exhibits the most weathered, expressive face in film. Weariness just drips from him as he hold on to the moral center of the story. And Javier Bardem transmogrifies into mindless evil incarnate. Josh Brolin manages to rivet our attention in spite of the fact that we all know what's going to happen to him as soon as he make his first dumb decision. Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, and Tess Harper all deliver nuanced performances worthy of Oscar nods.
The dialogue is spare like the landscape; it lacks the constant wit and satire of Fargo, but that's not a problem. This terse dialogue is probably due in large part to Cormac McCarthy's novel on which the film was based. Often, when Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) speaks, however, his thoughtful, witty comments seem not so much directed at another person as toward the out-of-kilter universe or the God who, he is convinced, has passed him by.
The movie is extremely violent. Death comes suddenly with little warning. On one level, the movie is a thriller, a story of drugs and violence, a good, solid story. On another level, however, the movie channels Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. A preposterous claim? I think not. The movie works as a metaphor for the transitory nature of our existence. Death comes for all. Some sooner. Some later. Bell is Everyman trying to make sense of it all. Pay attention to his description of his dream at the end of the movie. It is death toward which he moves, just as we all do. As the tagline points out, "There are no clean getaways."
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