Call it, friendo

The Coen brothers’ much lauded “No Country for Old Men” (“NCFOM”), finally seen by me only after having read Cormac McCarthy’s novel “The Road”, is a stunning piece of filmmaking. It’s difficult to talk about the movie in the traditional review format – who made it and why, what the basic plot mechanisms are, who plays who, and so on. Rather, I’ll make a few observations on what the film is and how it is and probably leave it at that for the time being.

Javier Bardem may have won the Oscar, deservedly so, for his portrayal of Chigurgh, but everyone in this film is in top form. Tommy Lee Jones as the sheriff, Ed Tom Bell (a perfect name for an American lawman, if you ask me); Josh Brolin as Moss, who finds a case of money in the aftermath of a drug-related bloodbath. There are smaller yet vitally important performances: Kelly Macdonald, who plays Mrs. Moss, seems rather simple at the outset, yet she is the one who resists Chigurgh’s sense of order; Barry Corbin, nearly unrecognizable, shows up late in the film as an acquaintance of Bell’s whose dialogue brings together some important thematic strands in a grand way; Woody Harrelson as the corporate fixer-of-sorts who has seen Chigurgh and lived but also knows that, as the movie keeps reminding us, “you can’t stop what’s coming”.
Chigurgh.
Age.
Death.

From its opening shots – a beautiful arrangement courtesy of Roger Deakins – “NCFOM” has an air of menace that is almost breathable. How apt that it’s Bell’s narration that opens the film, and brings everything to an end as well, functioning as a solid yet fluid bookending. Chigurgh, who is said by some to be the film’s villain, kills his first victim barely five minutes in. Many more die, and you realise that any character can face death at any moment in the film. There is a scene, one of the film’s best, one of the year’s best, between Chigurgh and a gas station manager that tells us all we need to know about Chigurgh and the constant negotiation between life and death that makes up human existence.

With this in mind, Jim Emerson has loosely referred to “NCFOM” as an “existentialist thriller”, but he and other critics acknowledge that you cannot squeeze the movie into a genre, label it and put it away. What may seem to be a crime thriller, straight and simple, is a complex treatment of existence and fate – everything is a coin toss, every decision has an unavoidable outcome. All the characters come to know this. And it is further problematic to label the characters, too, since none of them fit a certain stereotype. Bell is not a typical policeman; he’s contemplative, reflective, and knows what’s in store for him (see the clever showdown set-up for a showdown that never happens close to the film’s end).

Bell does have a strong sense of justice, but then so does Chigurgh, who is a rather moral character and who is the most potent screen psychopath since Frank Boothe donned an oxygen mask in “Blue Velvet” in 1986. Yes, I purposefully omit the eponymous dr. Lecter; Hannibal has nothing on Chigurgh. Lecter you can analyse, you can find motives in his past and future that drive him (see the lesser prequels), you can even use his intellect to direct an investigation. You cannot do any of that with Chigurgh because you can’t and don’t understand Chigurgh. He doesn’t have the audience-friendly traits that we’ve come to associate with movie killers in the post-Lecter era. Depending on who you agree with, Chigurgh is (a) Death, (b) a supernatural force such as a ghost, (c) a living, breathing psychopath who has come to be (or was born) pure evil, or (d) all of the above.

Isn’t Moss the main character of the film? To an extent yes, but mostly as an example of what happens when you try to avoid “what’s coming” before he disappears. The relationship between Moss, who makes an active decision and then attempts to deny the consequences, Bell and Chigurgh, is what mainly constitutes the philosophical frame of the film.

The characters, themes and philosophy of “NCFOM” may come from McCarthy’s prose, but the Coen brothers make the text their own by giving it powerful visual life. These are master craftsmen at work. We have witnessed their talents over a variety of films, many of which are cult classics – the pacifist-bowling comedy “The Big Lebowski”, the men of constant sorrow in the hilarious “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, the blood-soaked snowscapes of “Fargo”. But the brothers have usually been best working with more somber material – witness the ‘mobster drama’ “Miller’s Crossing”. “NCFOM” is a crowning achievement coming after so much work. The visual motifs alone in this film are worth a dozen discussions – the coin(s), doors (exits/entrances), invasions, feet (of dead men, of live men, of wounded men); there is so much blood in the film (though never gratuitous) that it too becomes a visual metaphor for life, death, loss, waste and taint. Jim Emerson and his perceptive readers have discussed the above sufficiently.

“NCFOM” brings much to the table worthy of discussion, which alone makes it worth seeing. At the risk of sounding clichéd, it’s an experience not easily shaken and demanding multiple viewings. Many films, good and bad, have dealt with similar themes before, but seldom with such perfect timing, performances, writing and execution, and seldom in such rich, elegiac form.