Wednesday

No Country For Old Men, or 'Old Country For No Men' as the people behind me in the ticket-queue called it, is a remarkable film. The Coen brothers return to the serious themes of some their earlier work (Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing), but with the twenty years of intervening experience added to it. They still retain some of their humour, but it comes from the characters themselves, rather than being contained in the style of the film. The plot is a little reminiscent of Fargo, but that is neither really their fault, nor a great problem. This movie is sombre and threatening with, to begin with at least, little dialogue, and little music that I noticed. For the majority of its length I thought it was superb, but the ending disturbed me. Not wanting to give too much away, but it seemed like a substantial character was dealt with unsubstantially. It felt as if perhaps they had suddenly had to condense a large part of the book to fit it into the film. I don't know. The conclusion itself caught me when I wasn't quite concentrating (such that I had to go find the novel in a bookstore and read the last pages), but perhaps it is a good thing that I can still be surprised by a movie. I did, however, feel strangely unsatisfied, despite this being I think a brilliant film.