one of the great movies

Rating: 10/10 (7 January 2008)

One of the great movies, a profound movie--a Buddhist/Taoist movie. The ending is entirely appropriate, for this is not an action movie. The movie is about death--death as the overwhelming fact of life, so that any life is basically a meaningless failure. Faced with the overwhelming fact of death, all of us humans--especially the characters in this movie--find meaning only by making up their own spiritual codes, their Tao, their Way. The murderer's code, the good old boy's code, the sheriff's code, the wife's code--they are all equally meaningless, equally inadequate in the face of death, but they are all perfectly legitimate responses to the fact of universal death. (In the world of the movie they are perfectly legitimate responses--i, for one, would like to believe that in the real world it's better not to make up a murderer's code.) Given this world view, if redemption is possible, the movie makes clear that it could come in two forms: 1.) The made-up codes come into conflict, and those conflicts arouse interest, they have entertainment value. 2.) Helpless in the face of death, all people have a natural recourse available to them if they choose to take it--to take pity on, to nurture and care for their own even more helpless young; hence the parental theme in the movie, the father-son theme that is most prominent at the very end.
The movie is beautiful in execution, in every respect--in acting, in film editing, in camera work, in script. I've seen it twice and hope to see it again.