Lifestyle

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

COEN BROTHERS VAMP UP CLASSIC CHASE

Good, evil; love, hate; life, death; hope, despair; selflessness, greed; fate and the random. If your head is already swimming with just some of the themes which encompass the world of ‘No Country’ then this film may be too disorientating for comfort. Though it has been praised by critics and tipped for Oscar success, many will be repelled by the sheer dizzying massiveness of the Coen Brothers’ latest creation.

Old and new clash as we follow average joe, Llewellyn Moss as he chances across a stash of drug money and decides to run. In pursuit is chillingly ruthless killer Anton Chirgurh and further behind, picking up the trail is aging sheriff Ed Bell. We have, perhaps, seen all this before, yet the Coens sheen the process with such quiet originality and genre bending style that new life blows through the tired formulas. The inclusion of genuine humour throughout the dark matter further adds to the unsettling feel.

A film that poses questions rather than provides answers, the intensity of ‘No Country’, which is set very much at a low, hushed pitch, becomes faintly palpable in the final cryptically prophetic moments; skirting crescendo and favouring a blunt silence which echoes something of the flat featureless Texan landscape. Challenging to say the least, but for those brave enough; a vertiginous but deeply transcendent experience awaits.

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