A cinematic brilliance, albeit one that doesn't provoke thinking

Rating: 8/10 (19 April 2008)

Right off the bat, let me state clearly that I totally enjoyed No Country for Old Men. The craftsmanship is simply amazing. Given the story, it's hard to imagine the movie could have been any better. From the cinematography, to the tone, to the acting, the movie is nothing short of absolutely first-rate. It's a movie that lingers in your head for hours and hours. The screenplay is very efficient--with the slight exception of Tommy Lee Jones's monologue toward the end: not a lot is said, but every line enriches our understanding of the characters, their relationships, and the situations. And of course, the dialogue is sometimes so tastily funny, too.
Watching the movie feels like watching a haunting ballet performance--both elicit feelings so intense but subtle, disturbing but incomprehensible that mere verbal expressions can hardly convey them in full. In the case of No Country, it's how the seeming quietness of our life can be so fragile, so highly vulnerable to randomness. It is to the filmmakers' full credit that the movie feels so real that such feelings simply ooze rather than are jerked out.
That said, it's a movie that does not provoke--though I am not saying that all great movies should. Much like a documentary, the movie describes an incident from a certain angle. It does very well portraying the experiences of those affected. But it is a simple story, one that is a little too linear and straight forward. In turn, the movie is one that elicits feelings but doesn't provoke thinking. Again, continuing my previous analogy, the movie is like a great ballet performance--you go away with tonnes of feelings, but then you gain little insight or new perspective. It describes things, but chooses to neither shed much light on their nature nor offer new interpretations of them.
Of course, it's not the movie's goal to be thought-provoking. And with regards goals that it sets out to achieve, it achieves them remarkably well.