Javier Bardem hunting down his prey in No Country for Old Men
“Alright then. Two of 'em. Both had my father in 'em . It's
peculiar. I'm older now than he ever was by twenty years. So in a sense he's
the younger man. Anyway, first one I don't remember too well but it was about
meeting him in town somewhere, he's gonna give me some money. I think I lost
it. The second one, it was like we was both back in older times and I was on
horseback goin' through the mountains of a night. Goin' through this pass in
the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me
and kept on goin'. Never said nothin' goin' by. He just rode on past... and he
had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down and when he rode past I
seen he was carryin' fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see
the horn from the light inside of it. 'Bout the color of the moon. And in the
dream I knew that he was goin' on ahead and he was fixin' to make a fire
somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that
whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up...”
-Ed Tom Bell
*Spoiler Alert*
That final monologue sends shivers down my spine every time.
From Tommy Lee Jones’ pitch perfect delivery to the near silence that follows
to the cut to black that follows the silence everything in that monologue is
perfectly creepy and representative of the film as a whole. Ed Tom Bell, Jones’
character, was just driven away from his job as the sheriff and into retirement
by the horrific evil that is Anton Chigur. The dream is a closing metaphor for
the events he’s lived and the evil that “woke him up” and drove him out of the
country that wasn’t built for old men like him.
That final monologue represents Joel and Ethan Coen’s
masterful adaptation of No Country for Old Men in as a whole. The evil that is
present in the film is inescapable especially by the old and systematic that
has made up the system before. No Country for old men is not only a masterful
thriller, but also a brilliant character study of everyone involved from the
running man, to the old man, to even the evil man.
Man what an evil man that Javier Bardem plays throughout
this film. With that strange mushroom cut to the frightening coin toss Chigur
is a truly masterful villain who is just plain creepy throughout the film. Chigur is on an unstoppable quest to get his
money back from Llewelyn (Josh Brolin) who came across the money after a train
wreck. Sheriff Bell is caught up in the middle after witnessing the train wreck
and the murders the Chigur left in his wits. The study of the two characters
and their reactions to the evil that chases them is masterful to watch. Bell is
especially complex as he has to realize that maybe in fact he doesn’t belong in
the position any longer.
No Country for Old Men builds as the body count piles up. The
tension continues to mount as Chigur chases after Lewelyn throughout the town
leaving a trail of bodies around until there is no one left to get. It leaves
the Lewelyn dead in a motel, the sheriff to retire, and the viewer to be left
with a chilling closing monologue.
-Frederick Cholowski
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