This is just the second Coen brothers film I’ve seen (the first was The Big Lebowski which is hilarious).
‘No Country’ is much more violent, though interestingly, like the Big Lebowski, starts and (kind of) ends with a voice-over from an old-timer reflecting on how things have changed. No Country seems firmly set in Texas, with some impresive vistas
early on in the film. I found its topic puzzling as there are clearly strong themes; violence, hunting, Texas culture
weapons, principles, changing times, buying shirts to cover up wounds and random acts, but random acts kept
decentring the narrative as the characters we assume are the main people exit from the film in unexpected
and kind of undeserved ways, often without us even seeing the act of violence that effects their exit. The film
seems to have a number of centres of gravity. One is the psychopathic killer played by Javier Bardem. He is like a
1960s ethnomethodologist in his refusal to tolerate and participate in casual idiomatic conversation. He goes to
the heart of things, in many senses. Scarey certainly, but almost likable by the end. One review of this film
claims that its concern is with ‘bad luck’ that organises the plot as well as the number of narratives that
we hear recounted within the film, including the brief story of the cattleman who aimed a shot at a steer in order
to slaughter it as it hung upside down in the slaughterhouse. The shot missed the animal’s brain and bounced off
two walls before landing in the cowboy’s left shoulder. As the film draws to a close, we get closer to the jaded
and eventually retired cop who reflects on violence and ponders whether life – or maybe Texas life – has always
been unpredictable and violent. In the very last frame he is telling about his dream of his dead father who is
calling him. Finally, there is a huge amount of blood in this film.