Only once every few years are we blessed with this type of film...

Rating: 10/10 (9 January 2008)

Once every few years arrives a film that breaks through the every-day barrage of media mediocrity to reach greatness; a cinematic event that you will one day nostalgically tell your kids "I remember the first time I saw" As a 17-year-old, my parents had many of these moments. They love recalling their first viewings of films like "The Godfather," "Dr. Strangelove," and "Psycho." Film-lovers of my generation have had far too few of them in our lifetimes. Sure, we've witnessed some fantastic movies in the Clinton-Bush years, but when is the last time you sat in a theater with wide-eyes, knowing that you were witnessing history-in-the-making? That time has come around again.
"There Will Be Blood" opens with stillness and ends with a bang. It is one of the few films I've ever seen that I actually have a difficult time talking aboutit speaks not with words but bombastic images and sounds, flashes of countryside and jolts of strings (composed by the master Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood). In the most complete way I can and want to summarize it, the film tells the tale of an Oil-prospector and the those he forms relationships (if one can call them that) in the Southwest from the early 1900's to the late 20's.
Based on the novel "Oil" by Upton Sinclair, "Blood" comes at the apex of both director P.T. Anderson's and actor Daniel-Day Lewis's careers. Anderson, at 37 and with four actual wide-release films under his belt, is already one of the greatest filmmakers to have ever come out of the United States. It is no question that this film will cement him into that golden pathway with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman and Francis-Ford Coppola.
Each shot is composed masterfully, and Anderson uses the vast, arid, other-worldly look of the American frontier as haunting backdrop for the plight of his central character, played by Daniel-Day Lewis. Each time Day-Lewis speaks, he incites fear. His character, Daniel Plainview, is a miracle of transformationwhen you see the actor himself in an interview; it is difficult to believe that it is the same person speaking. So rarely does this type of performance grace the screen that it would be sinful for the academy not to reward Day-Lewis with an Oscar, even though he's won one before.
The movie takes on huge themesgreed, religion and the American way are all put majestically on trialbut the beautiful thing is that the film could be seen simply as small character drama about the decline of one man, and still be a masterpiece. If you look through the thick air of dread that seems to coat every scene, a much deeper and even more troubling grave lays undiscovered, revealing itself a bit more on each viewing. It is this depth that makes this film one of the best I've been lucky enough to see in theaters this year, and possibly even during my lifetime. If that's not enough to get you to go see this movie, P.T. Anderson's filmography and Day-Lewis's proved skill should be. What are you waiting for? Make the pilgrimage. The oil's almost gone!