CAMPUS

The Coens Go West: No Country for Old Men

More than a decade after the breakout success of the Oscar-nominated “Fargo,” brothers Joel and Ethan Coen are poised for awards season glory. Prepare yourselves for another violent and idiosyncratic fable of Middle America, this time set in the desolate plains of West Texas. Adapting from the novel No Country for Old Men, by celebrated author Cormac McCarthy, the Coens deliver perhaps their densest work to date. This film offers a meditation on the body count that they have amassed through two decades of pictures about semi-bad people doing very bad things.

The dramatic arc of the film follows metalworker Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), who stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong during a weekend hunting excursion and finds himself up to his Wranglers in cash. Faster than you can say shallow grave, Moss finds himself pursued by hordes of pissed-off Mexican mafiosos seeking payment for their hijacked truckload of heroin, as well as rogue hitman Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a character who is equal parts grim reaper and existentialist philosopher. Meanwhile, Texified Sherriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) does his best Marge Gunderson turn, staying doggedly a step behind the film’s criminal element.

The plot snakes through the Rio Grande valley, with a fresh load of corpses deposited at each seedy motel. For once, though, the Coen’s allow their trademark violence to mobilize weightier philosophical issues. The film is centered on concern over the conflict between providence and chance, symbolized with eloquent simplicity by Chigurh’s preference for making his decisions with the flip of a coin. For Chigurh, death becomes an occasion to meditate on the meaning of life itself and the arbitrary nature of existence, a notion that clashes with the homespun philosophy of Sheriff Bell whose very existence is predicated on faith in humanity.

Such heady material could have led to the film becoming something of a retreading of films like “Unforgiven,” or even of the Coens’ earlier works. However, Bell’s agonizing struggle over the decline of the way of life he believes in, rendered in a masterfully understated performance by Jones, make Marge Gunderson’s gentle platitudes (“There’s more to life than a little money, you know”) seem shamefully trite by comparison. The film’s Texasy dialogue, while at times overly glib, resounds with startling depth, capturing the spirit of Ingmar Bergman in a way that Woody Allen could only dream of. Indeed, the final scene ranks with the greatest passages in art cinema, like Antonioni in cowboy hats.

The weight of the dramatic situation masks some austere compositional choices at the visual and aural levels. Many viewers will not notice the total absence of a score or soundtrack, until the credits have begun to roll. Also, in an era where shot lengths are growing ever shorter even in the world of prestige pictures (i.e. “The Departed”), the Coens employ a style that focuses on long takes and static bodies, again channeling the art cinema of the 1960’s. The film’s sense of place becomes strained, and spatial relationships between characters at times breakdown completely, such as in Chigurh’s myriad and mysterious disappearances. Such curious occurrences make this a film that will certainly reward repeated viewings. Fortunately for intrepid viewers, a long theatrical run appears to be in the cards.

Luke Stadel is a writer for The Rice Standard, a Collegiate Network publication. This article was originally featured in the December 3, 2007 issue of the Standard.