Much to think about

Rating: 9/10 (13 November 2007)

The ending of course frustrates many viewers because the intent, both of McCarthy and the Coens, is not so much to satisfy needs for a satisfying resolution of mystery, but rather to induce thought, reflection, and meditation on the depths of it all.
My wife and I both enjoyed it immensely, even though she had to "brace" herself for what she expected would be a gore fest. She was relieved that the worst for her was watching Chigurh tend to his own wound. We spent dinnertime and beyond brainstorming all the stuff that kept coming up from our churning associations.
Many questions seemed unresolved. What happened to the money? Why did Wells spot the money case then do nothing to retrieve it immediately? What exactly was Chigurh's agenda - the money? rage at the incompetence of those who hired him? his own evil "principles"? Why did someone like Moss fail to think, until too late, of something like the transponder? What happened in the scene of his wife and her mother being sent away? What exactly happens in the crucial scene when Sheriff Bell returns to the yellow-taped crime scene and we see Chigurh (inside that room?). If Chiguhr was in there, why doesn't Bell encounter him when he decides to enter? Did Chigurh take off? Bell spies the unscrewed vent grate, but what comes of that? Does Chigurh have the money? Did Bell take it? Yes, we talked at length about possibilities of Bell, the "good," honest lawman realizing this is "no country for old men" and deciding to smooth his way to retirement. This is associated with his puzzling need to visit the old man in the wheelchair toward the end, and also his second dream described to his wife.
So - unanswered questions for us all to discuss.
But there's more.
The title is taken from Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium," and a review of that poem and its meaning may be useful.
There is some obvious use of symbolism in the Coens' film, and once you begin to notice it, you start "following the threads." Car hood ornaments are prominently displayed. Especially telling is the Dodge Ram's head on the car Chigurh uses for a while. Aries (element, fire; house of Mars). But, more than Aries . . . the Minotaur! and now a whole new double-take about Chigurh's imposing, threatening presence. The Minotaur was also a demonic, unstoppable force of destruction, who pursued his victims through the labyrinth. Not only were the pursuits here, through hallways, stairways, and borders labyrinthine, but the device of Moss rigging a line to those tent poles in order to conceal and retrieve his treasure is reminiscent of Theseus using Ariadne's thread to navigate the labyrinth and survive the Minotaur.
The horned image of the ram may also allude to a Celtic god, Cernunnos, a mysterious hunter.
What puzzled us most of all was the possible significance of the Sheriff's dreams that end the book and the film. He dreams of his own father, ahead of him through a snowy mountain pass, carrying a horn filled with fire. There's also mention of money, lost, in the first dream.
In our speculations we wondered how Moss's mother-in-law died. Her cancer? or was she killed? And could the money have been buried in her casket? If it was, my wife says this alludes to "Huckleberry Finn," which also contains a line about "setting out for the territories," which she recalls coming up in Bell's conversation with the old man at the end.
I think I could go on, but I'll stop here for now. Definitely a masterpiece!