by Chris Marshall:
Even though it is starkly different from most of their
earliest movies, No Country for Old Men
is one of the finest Coen Brothers films. It takes a very serious, somber tone,
but it would be a mistake to say there are no laughs; they are just of a much
different variety than typically seen in their past work.
But that makes sense. This is by no means a comedy—Cormac McCarthy
has never been considered much of a jokester. Instead, its goal is no less than
to personify Evil in the character of Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). Is he
human? Is he a monster? Some combination of the two?
He actually reminds me in many ways of Leonard Smalls, the
biker from Raising Arizona. They both
seem to appear out of nowhere and take joy in killing the innocent. Even
animals aren’t spared. Smalls blows away a rabbit and a lizard as he rides down
the highway; Chigurh shoots at a crow with his shotgun. Both of them seem,
paradoxically, more and less than human simultaneously. Chigurh appears
completely unfazed by pain. Even he’s limping or otherwise physically impaired,
his face betrays nothing.
