In one scene a man sits in a dark hotel room as his pursuer walks down the corridor outside. But the pacing, the mood and the attention to detail are breathtaking, sometimes literally. McCarthy’s novel almost scene for scene, and what the camera discloses is pretty much what the book describes: a parched, empty landscape pickup trucks and taciturn men and lots of killing.
Sometimes their appetite for pastiche overwhelms their more sober storytelling instincts, so it is something of a relief to find nothing especially showy or gimmicky in “No Country.” In the Coen canon it belongs with “Blood Simple,” “Miller’s Crossing” and “Fargo” as a densely woven crime story made more effective by a certain controlled stylistic perversity. At their best, and for that matter at their less than best, Joel and Ethan Coen, who share writing and directing credit here, combine virtuosic dexterity with mischievous high spirits, as if they were playing Franz Liszt’s most treacherous compositions on dueling banjos. The cinematographer, Roger Deakins, and the composer, Carter Burwell, are collaborators of such long standing that they surely count as part of the nonbiological Coen fraternity. The editor, Roderick Jaynes, is their longstanding pseudonym. So before I go any further, allow me my moment of bliss at the sheer brilliance of the Coens’ technique. For formalists - those moviegoers sent into raptures by tight editing, nimble camera work and faultless sound design - it’s pure heaven. “No Country for Old Men” is purgatory for the squeamish and the easily spooked. The specter of Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a deadpan sociopath with a funny haircut, will feed many a nightmare, but the most lasting impression left by this film is likely to be the deep satisfaction that comes from witnessing the nearly perfect execution of a difficult task. At its center is a figure of evil so calm, so extreme, so implacable that to hear his voice is to feel the temperature in the theater drop.īut while that chilly sensation is a sign of terror, it may equally be a symptom of delight.
“No Country for Old Men,” adapted by Joel and Ethan Coen from Cormac McCarthy’s novel, is bleak, scary and relentlessly violent.
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