No Country for Old Men
The review in the Montreal Mirror of the latest Coen Brothers film, which is supposed to redeem their latest cinematic transgressions and dullnesses, points out how remarkably faithful No Country for Old Men is both to its namesake, the Cormac McCarthy novel, and to the general and familiar feel of the Coens' work itself.
Some artists may simply have affinities. McCarthy and the Coens may be such artists. Slowness. Violence. Masculinity. Quirk. Eerie timelessness (how different was the wild west three hundred years ago and in 1980, really, motorized ve-hicles notwithstanding?). A wonderful scene between two county sheriffs points to the relativity of the passing of time in the American desert: If anyone had told me that I'd be seeing kids with green hair and a bone through their nose, one sheriff says to the other, I wouldn't have believed them.
I promise that there are no kids with green hair in No Country for Old Men. There are rather cowboys and more cowboys, hand-painted auto supply signs, rifles and pistols, a terrifying psychopath armed with a cattle stunner, trailer parks, and Mexicans. Technology enters almost seamlessly, sensical and aesthetic. The suitcase with the money has a tracking device. Accounting and high level policing takes place in the corner office of a gleaming office building. These are no reasons to abandon your cowboy boots and ten gallon hat.
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