Coen's best since No Country for Old Men

Rating: 9/10 (22 January 2014)

Inside Llewyn Davis can be rightfully so considered one of the greatest films released in 2013. As usual, another Coen's great film. The film tells the story of Llewyn Davis, an apparently good singer that somewhat is considered horrible. He has no direction in his life, but he wants to be a folk-music singer. And this is where the film starts. The coens decided to put a more comedic/musical approach in this film, and it was a spot on choice. It has hilarious moments and one liners, it reminds me a lot of the comedy cult-classic The Big Lebowski, and in the way it looks, Inside Llewyn Davis is walking in that same Cult-Classic way. And rightfully so, it has a beautiful and extremely funny story, full of deeper meanings, symbiotic elements (typical in Coens's films) and totally deserves to be watched.
Oscar Isaacs is surprisingly good as Llewyn Davis, great acting performance. He is really funny, and his unusual way turns even a relatively normal scene in an hilarious one. It's a hard thing to accomplish. Llewyn is the kind of character that makes you laugh just by looking at him and his reactions. A great work. And of course, I think I already said that the one-liners were great.
But an aspect that I really want to congratulate is the cinematography/art direction. One of the best that I've seen in a long while. No kidding. The color's scheme and the lightning a la Noir films, the unusual camera angles, I mean, just look at the gallery scene and the tight space between the door of Llewyn's apartment and his neighbor's apartment, and how that image may have an symbiotic importance. There is really no scene in this film that is like "oh let's do a great cinematography on that scene just for the sake of it". No, there is always a reason for the things to be in the way they are.
There are other examples as well, like in the 'bust scene' where Llewyn is in the car trying to figure out a solution for his problems, and starts to look everywhere, so as you see in that scene, the night set is terrific and even resembles a bit some kind of Gothic atmosphere. The cinematography is really great and stands out almost as an Oscar-winner work, definitely a top 5 of 2013 in that aspect. Anyways, everything in this film is great, so is really hard to talk about it without paying a compliment. So, what more can I say? Go watch it as soon as possible. 9.5/10