A New Heart of Darkness

Rating: 10/10 (22 January 2008)

"There Will Be Blood" is an implied promise. Going into the screening there is an anticipation of excess and a near-biblical pressing of the limits. And for all of its extremes, Paul Anderson's epic story of ambition and other masculine appetites, shows considerable reserve. It's language is, when it needs to be, restrained. In something of a trope, key phrases are repeated. Not just for emphasis or even for shading, but to infuse the moment with an intimacy that's rare in recent film-making.
In a film nominally ABOUT excess, there are several different strands of spectacle, one dwarfing the next. Daniel Day-Lewis' character, Daniel Plainview, is a study in ambition. Paul Dano, playing evangelical Eli Sunday, is a counterforce, drilling the inner depths. One a trusting healer, the other, Plainview, a "stealer." One seeks intimacy with cosmic mysteries with an out-sized faith, the other by taking god-like liberties as he pleases. The "blood" in the title is not just the blood of violence (which is actually used sparingly in the film), but is also the blood of Jesus, invoked by Eli Sunday. Another strand of spectacle is the bone-breaking and ground-wrenching drama of pulling wealth from the ground. The actual work of digging and drilling shown by Anderson is dangerous, rewarding and a remarkable -- even sensual -- spectacle.
It even dwarfs the demi-god Plainview himself.
And the film keeps topping itself. Plainview takes a meeting with a business rival and uses the moment as an opportunity to reveal an ambition (and an anguish) that is limitless. Dano tops his brilliant performance earlier in the film by continually reinventing himself as the story barrels along. The music, by Jonny Greenwood, tops one's expectations. In the very first scene the music tips the viewer off: This is no ordinary film! The sets, brilliantly evocative of the period, never overpower the narrative, but constantly buttresses the hand-wrought feeling of the early twentieth century.
What is left for Plainview's insatiable appetite for dominance in the end? Go see it and see...