Ok, so you may remember last year I got myself a Playstation 3 to go with my newly bought HD TV, dead excited to finally move into the next generation of watching my favourite films past, present and future in the comfort of my own home in high definition quality. Sadly and unexpectedly, the only title I managed to check out was an absolutely gorgeous transfer of
Matthew Vaughn's brilliantly under-rated drug gangster epic
Layer Cake before I had a few problems with my car and needed to sell my new toy to fund new parts and repairs. For that one movie though the hassle was almost more than worth it, I LOVED seeing those cold blue eyes of
Daniel Craig and the raw pure visual energy that Vaughn put into the movie literally burst out of my screen in an explosion of cinematic ectasy. Did I mention I loved it? Fast forward a year, and many viewings of the still alive (and I'm happy to see it continue for a while longer yet) standard dvd later and I've struck a deal with a few companies to regularly be sent some of the latest Blu-Ray titles to review. Hence, the birth of this column. I guess you could call it Matt's Blu Ray Blog, for lack of a better name. It will be unscheduled and basically whenever I get chance to see a Blu-Ray title I will briefly write up my thoughts. And what better way to try out the Blu Ray technology than to watch the movie that I named the Obsessed With Film movie of the year. The multiple Academy Award winning
No Country For Old Men.
After all, was there a more flawless film in 2007, or hell 2006? Not since
Downfall, have I enjoyed a movie where every scene is exactly as note perfect as it needed to be and upon watching it the second time in glorious HD, I am confident enough in saying this is the
Coen Brothers greatest achievement to date. And with movies like
Miller's Crossing, Blood Simple, The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona and although strangely I'm not a HUGE fan of it despite it being quite close in themes to this film -
Fargo - that is a hell of a statement right there. There's a confidence to their work here that is so rare in film-making these days. What sets them apart from many of their peers, is they meticulously take their time in really grinding down the scenes and letting the characters think about every given situation. Nothing is rushed here. When broke welder Llewelyn Moss (
Josh Brolin) finds the money that could finally see him move out of the trailer slump him and his poor wife (
Kelly MacDonald) have endured in for far too long, we are privileged with the close time around him where he flips over his options. Should he take the money, what would we do in the same given situation? Moss is hardly the good Samaritan hero of a typical Western but you can't help sympathise with the opportunist. It's a little like the Hitchcock movie
Rope - you are with the sinister
John Dall and the confused
Farley Grainger - the duo of murderers at the beginning and you don't really want
James Stewart to catch them and figure out their crime because it's not him you are aligned with. But what a deliciously simple setup. Cowboy with no money suddenly finds lots of him and a whole load of dead bodies. The Coens aren't reinventing anything new here but it's so well made, you believe they are.
In a sense, these are characters that know about movies. They know the mistakes. Llewelyn can't sleep at the hotel he is hiding in because he is thinking about the events of the day and how some kind of tracker must be in his case for him to be found. It's a delight to watch, characters with depth and intelligence. Characters here are built more around their action than any line of dialogue. Take the weird but coldly named Anton Chigurah. He gets caught gets taken to jail unflinchingly strangles the cop to death. drives away and kills another guy with his weird pressurized tank thing he carries. And Anton Chigurah is born, possibly the most frightening serial killer we have seen on screen for many years. And again, he is defined so simply. Death hangs over the film when Chigurah is in frame. He is the Grim Reaper, he chooses whether you live or die and by how and what sick demented way. You can see in each conversation of word play jousting he has with each character, he is weighing up his options over how to kill you. There's no "What If's" here, that coin in life has ended up where it has because of conscious decisions people have made. And still none of them see it coming do they? "You don't have to do this?" is their usual response, surprised to stare death in the face, pathetically trying to weasel and bargain their way out of the situation but as Chigurah points out it's their actions in life that have led them to this final shocking encounter. Only Moss' wife keeps her demeanour in the face of death - the conclusion to her narrative remains locked between two scenes though by the wiping down of his boots and to keep with the character that has been built up, it's clear she didn't survive the encounter. Indeed, in the novel she is shot dead. The way I see it, she is the only main character in the film who has dignity and was innocent who died, the Coens privilege her with an off screen ending.
And what about
Tommy Lee Jones and his best performance of last year (no Academy, it wasn't
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH but this movie!) as retiring Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. Yes, out of all the characters in the film his is the one that you could imagine the actor bringing his own outfit to the set (as he has done a Sheriff many, many times) but this is a different character for him. It's a role like the best of an aging
John Wayne. One of my absolute favourite movies of all time, not just Westerns, is
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance where Wayne's guilt of shooting a man in the back effectively murdering him is a moment of guilt he is never able to overcome. In fact, it kills him. It's possibly the darkest moments of Wayne's career as he fears the judgement that is to come. That's what Jones' character is all about here. The bookended narrative is his fear of his father (or God, the End of life if you prefer) and how he has failed his duty as a lawmen. He failed to catch Chigurah, how will he be judged as the time of death rapidly approaches. This is what the speech about his father is about for those who watch movies without paying attention. I've seen the movie twice now and I'm pretty confident that I haven't got all the pieces of the puzzle in the right place just yet. Like a
Christopher Nolan movie, this requires multiple viewings as things are not so much stated but hinted at and shown. There are no lectures here, no play by the book formula that the Coens are sticking too... this is just perfect storytelling and direction of the highest order. Bardem, Brolin, even Jones who has played this kind of character for longer than I have been alive all feel so fresh here.
Woody Harrelson's character may be over the top but man if you don't feel for him when he is faced with his final moments in life.
I loved catching this again on Blu-Ray, the cinematography of
Roger Deakins is as gritty and dirty... almost empty as Chigurah's mind. I can't believe anyone out there hasn't seen this yet, but if you are one of them then YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS. This may well be the best revisionist Western since Liberty Valance. Surely Jones' aging hero who doesn't get his final showdown against Chigurah is more haunting than
Clint Eastwood's return to glory in
Unforgiven? This is one of the best American set films of this millennium.
NEXT UP:"I'll be back" with another review some time over the weekend!