a journey, a learning curve

Rating: 10/10 (17 February 2008)

It was the last hour,the last minute, in fact the last breath in which the miracle was performed and the humanity was redeemed,by the holy grace of the lord. Similarly in an year filled by spectacular masterpieces in terms of excellence and creativity from the American cinema, comes a story just before the year's end, a journey of human life - one that has all the points straight to remain human, told through such mesmerizing performances that an epic,not for an year, but for a decade is made.
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (of Mangolia fame), and nominated for eight Oscars (including the best movie, best male actor and best director) the movie 'There will be blood' is set in the early the early years of 20th century, when north America was just developing, portraying the life story of Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) who starts off as a silver miner, but switches over to oil mining business.He comes across a vast untouched and unheard oil source, after being given a tip-off about the place, and then the entire movie seems to chronicle how he gets the land from the people settled there, how he strikes deal with big players in the oil market and how he strikes a fortune and becomes a millionaire. But then, there is Eli Sunday(Paul Dano), a priest who goes about calling himself a prophet, stumbling into every single move the oil businessman tries to make,trying to throw his life out of balance every time it somewhat intends to come on track.Apart from the protagonist and the antagonist the movie has many a elements that separate it from the rest of the promising crowd of winner.The 12 year old son, that Daniel Plainview always moves around with, his step brother who seems to appear out of nowhere during the second half of the movie, the constant twists and turns that keep the story's protagonist to remain a normal human even in spite of his success, all promise to keep the viewers engrossed for the two and a half hour length of this movie.The second aspect that needs to be mentioned apart from the storyline is the engaging and soulful background score that has been used throughout the movie, such a score that it never lets the excitement of anticipation die out from the audience.Almost all of the background score consists of symphonies and music from highly reputed 18th and 19th century composers from across the Europe.
All these endeavors in this movie would have been in vain if the atmosphere that is created in this movie would have failed, but the producers have seemed to take care of this aspect the most. The scenes that are put up, drive hard the point that the movie tries to develop, the struggle that goes into oil mining during that period is certainly visually developed through the arid uncultivated terrains, dry lands and vintage machineries that the movie shows. The movie seems to develop slowly, delivering less and arousing the desire to know more about the characters. The excellence of the director is clearly achieved as he delivers more than his previously directed works. But the depiction is Daniel Plainview, a character that grows from a small time miner into a confident man and to a ambitious person later, who puts his only relation i.e.with his son at stake for his desires, is very judiciously done by Daniel Day-Lewis. Having won an Oscar previously and having an experience of old time-western movies (Gangs of New York) he seems to breath life into the character of Daniel Plainview perfectly. His counterpart, the priest who proclaims himself to be the third revelation, a messiah figure, and a constant hinder to his aims adds the needed flavors of hate, passion and struggle to the movie.Paul Dano,who previously impressed audiences with his side role as 'silent'brother in 'Little Miss Sunshine' carries out the role to the maximum possible shades it can portray.
The movie is more a journey, a learning curve that seasoned movie lovers would surely appreciate. But if you are someone who catches American movies occasionally, leave this movie for future times as this movie requires deep appreciation and understanding of the various complexities that this movie seems to develop upon. Following the likes of legendary classics like 'Scarface' and 'Godfather' this movie, ranked #20 at IMDb among top 250 all-time movies, this movie is sure to be a milestone in American cinema, and would be viewed with same awe even after decades.It has all the emotions that a human life can offer - excitement, ambition, passion, fear, hate, jealously, treachery, morality and realization.And as the movie ends - Oh,yes there will be blood.