No Country for Old Men (2007)
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when i first heard about this i knew i was going to see it so i tried to avoid all reviews and even previews. coen bros return to texas so you just expect an even better blood simple. and it’s amazing how masterful and perfect this is. end to end so many of their shots and cuts just left me dizzy at their skill. they love the shot of evidence rather than action and it is pretty incredible how economical it is for this plot and tone. diegetically i thought it got a little ridiculous at points when characters always saw the right evidence. it seemed like this was important to the themes around tlj, but with all the other characters just was a way to move things quicker.
i did end up seeing a preview for it and was immediately disappointed that bardem was clearly a force of nature character. it’s a played archetype, but it was a relief that he was important thematically and not just for coolness’ sake. i thought they still played it up too much, especially the ‘clean the wound’ scenes, but those were of course pretty cool anyway. ultimately i found the themes of chaos/order and societal/natural transgression a little pat. but that’s just my preference for messiness, and maybe they aren’t as pat as i thought since i zoned out big time during the last couple monologues - that guy with the cats mostly and a little during tlj’s dreams.
bardem was incredible, and i especially loved the sense of humor he brought to it. it helps that the coens are always going to be mischievous, but he had some looks that killed me. his talk with the woman who ran the trailer park especially. but the humor gave an interesting twist since his character was savage truth personified - a nice texture and counterbalance to tlj’s melancholy especially, but also the overall seriousness.
