"If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?"

Rating: 10/10 (24 July 2010)

Sometimes a movie just works. It is tensive and multiple dimensional. It appeals on many levels. Whether it edifies seems not to matter. Whether it improves my character seems not to matter. In some ways, I doubt that I even like the films of Joel and Ethan Coen. I do not go out of my way to watch their movies. When I do watch them, the films captivate me, at least for the time I watch them, but also they linger on the mental palate with vivid images and verbal memories.
"No Country for Old Men" has a script that almost seems too good, too literate, and too clever for my good, if not for the sake of the movie itself. I suppose that this is a cynical and brutal story, but somehow it just does not seem, in the end, sarcastic and scornful.
For whatever reason, this flick recalls "Pulp Fiction", another enjoyable iconoclastic movie that it seems to resemble. Notice that I use the qualifier "seems" often in this summary. I do because "No Country for Old Men" has an indefinite, almost indeterminate tone.
The minimalist Carter Burwell score has an indefinite, indeterminate quality. Cinematographer Roger Deakins modulates his styles as a jazz artist might with a score. Here he transposes Western icons from one range to another. The brothers themselves edited the film. They are simply geniuses. This is a well narrated movie—like "Pulp Fiction". Talking about any aspect of this movie necessarily involves dealing with other aspects. For example, the iconic use Javier Bardem involves plotting, cinematography (for example, framing and lens choice), editing, and dialogue.
The Coen brothers do not seem as serious as Antonioni, but their work reminds me of the classic body of work the Italian director created. I tend to undervalue Tarantino's body of work (I admit that) and the Coen brothers might seem too much like him in their creative effort, but somehow their work haunts me a tad more than Mr. Tarantino's work does. This is just an opinion, a highly personal one that I cannot defend.