There are movies that entertain you, and there are movies that make you think. There are movies you just relax and watch, and there are movies that require you to sit back and figure it out and in so doing make you uncomfortable.
I will leave it to you to decide which category No Country for Old Men falls into, or whether it contains a mixture of both. It does entertain, yes, but if you watch this movie with that assumption in mind then prepare to be disappointed.
No, No Country opens with a string of still scenes of the Texas countryside (stylisticly Kubrick) with Tommy Lee Jones providing a narration that is as straightforward as it is nuanced. Music in this movie is virtually absent. Where it is present you don't even realize it. It does not rely on musical cues to enhance its emotion or increase the intensity.
Then we see Javier Bardem, "the ultimate badass" as described by Josh Brolin, who is being chased by the former after the latter finds some money from a drug deal gone wrong. It is interesting to see how the sheriffs, surveying its aftermath, discuss about it almost routinely. As if such things are commonplace.
Indeed, Jones is almost stoic in his role: he displays very little emotion, and yet at the same time providing the film its backbone of meaning (even though it borders on near nihilism). That this country is slowly slipping into God knows what.
If Jones provides the film's meditative moments then Bardem and Brolin provide its tense ones. Bardem plays Anton Chigurh, a hired psychopathic hitman, shows a man calmly horrifying and , with equally bizarre tools of the trade: a captive bolt pistol and a shotgun with a silencer (weird, yes) with an occasional handgun. Whenever he talks to someone, we start thinking whether he is going to kill that person or not.
And Josh Brolin is the war veteran who decides to abscond with the drug money, without seemingly thinking much of the consequences. Of course, there are the other characters, but these three are basically what the movie cares about. He on the run, evading the likes of Chigurh. Their cat and mouse games are the only sort of conventional entertainment this movie offers. But boy, are they most thrilling and intense.
Is it easy to see what the main point of this film is? Perhaps. Jones' thoughts and discussions provide a helpful guide to see where it is going: our slow descent into depravity. I haven't read McCarthy's novel on which this film is faithfully based (some scenes are, apparently, adapted word for word).
The Coen Brothers are rightly praised for making a movie with beautifully orchestrated scenes and grippingly tense moments. This film is most certainly no Hollywood action/thriller (although it could be tagged as that) movie with a mandatory climactic finale. No, this movie ends, like most of us, not with a bang but with a soft, reflective whisper.
I will leave it to you to decide which category No Country for Old Men falls into, or whether it contains a mixture of both. It does entertain, yes, but if you watch this movie with that assumption in mind then prepare to be disappointed.
No, No Country opens with a string of still scenes of the Texas countryside (stylisticly Kubrick) with Tommy Lee Jones providing a narration that is as straightforward as it is nuanced. Music in this movie is virtually absent. Where it is present you don't even realize it. It does not rely on musical cues to enhance its emotion or increase the intensity.
Then we see Javier Bardem, "the ultimate badass" as described by Josh Brolin, who is being chased by the former after the latter finds some money from a drug deal gone wrong. It is interesting to see how the sheriffs, surveying its aftermath, discuss about it almost routinely. As if such things are commonplace.
Indeed, Jones is almost stoic in his role: he displays very little emotion, and yet at the same time providing the film its backbone of meaning (even though it borders on near nihilism). That this country is slowly slipping into God knows what.
If Jones provides the film's meditative moments then Bardem and Brolin provide its tense ones. Bardem plays Anton Chigurh, a hired psychopathic hitman, shows a man calmly horrifying and , with equally bizarre tools of the trade: a captive bolt pistol and a shotgun with a silencer (weird, yes) with an occasional handgun. Whenever he talks to someone, we start thinking whether he is going to kill that person or not.
And Josh Brolin is the war veteran who decides to abscond with the drug money, without seemingly thinking much of the consequences. Of course, there are the other characters, but these three are basically what the movie cares about. He on the run, evading the likes of Chigurh. Their cat and mouse games are the only sort of conventional entertainment this movie offers. But boy, are they most thrilling and intense.
Is it easy to see what the main point of this film is? Perhaps. Jones' thoughts and discussions provide a helpful guide to see where it is going: our slow descent into depravity. I haven't read McCarthy's novel on which this film is faithfully based (some scenes are, apparently, adapted word for word).
The Coen Brothers are rightly praised for making a movie with beautifully orchestrated scenes and grippingly tense moments. This film is most certainly no Hollywood action/thriller (although it could be tagged as that) movie with a mandatory climactic finale. No, this movie ends, like most of us, not with a bang but with a soft, reflective whisper.
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