No Country for Old Men

Yesterday evening I went to the Arbor Cinema in Northwest Austin and saw a matinée* of the latest Cohen Brothers film, No Country for Old Men. The film is a good one, but damn — uplifting it ain’t.

The film is beautifully shot, and expertly acted. I especially liked Tommy Lee Jones’s performance. It’s also and wonderfully written. Delightful and often funny dialogue and exquisite cinematography are interspersed only occasionally with brief sequences of action. And even these action sequences proceed at a measured pace, echoing the methodical determination of the story’s villain. His presence is felt throughout the film, even when he’s not in the scene. Even though the film is slow, it is never boring. The tension is maintained from start to finish.

The film’s violence is shocking not so much for its graphic nature but for its cruel pointlessness. Numb incomprehension in the face of heartless cruelty is a theme revisited many times, in the words of one character after another. Love and bravado aren’t enough to win the day; just when you think there is some fateful justice in the world, you watch as the wicked walk free. The story is a cautionary tale, blasting at once our culture’s slow decline into apathy, and the often simple-minded reactions this descent elicits from everyday people. I wonder how the average person reacts to this film: is it a call to action, or a reminder that life is pointless?

If you have a strong constitution and want to see a great film, No Country for Old Men fits the bill. I’m glad I saw the film, but I still hope the next Cohen Brothers movie is a bit more lighthearted.

* The practice of pricing matinée performances lower than evening ones has not made it to Sweden, where the state-subsidized company SF holds a near monopoly on cinemas. Yesterday’s ticket cost me $6.50, equivalent to 40.60 SEK — less than half the cost of a movie ticket in Sweden.

Third Pirates of the Caribbean film falls flat

Sunday night I saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean film. I had read a fair number of reviews of the film prior to seeing it, so I went in with low expectations. I was surprised to discover that the film sucked less than I was expecting.

But it still sucked.

There was no discernible plot, no character development, and a nonsensical story based in a world operating according to ever-changing laws. Death is treated in typical Hollywood fashion: as a joke, as serious, as reversible, as permanent. Which treatment it received depended only on the emotional impacted needed for the particular scene. Geoffrey Rush's character dies and is resurrected because he's needed again. The same goes for Depp. But Jonathan Pryce's character must stay dead. Why? There's no logic behind it; this death seems intended only to lend some forced emotion to a particular scene, and to give Knightley a chance to put on her angry/sad face. When the hundreds of extras die, no one sheds a tear.

Laws are to be broken on a whim, or followed religiously on pain of death; again, depending on needs of the scene. A case in point: When the pirates convene a war council and one dares to say “to hell with the pirate code,” he is summarily executed for his blasphemy; and again, nary a tear is shed. Honor among thieves? Hardly. The very idea of conformity to regulations is anathema to pirating, and whether one follows the rules — or which set of rules one follows — seems to matter little. Worse still, this murder of a bit-player is played as a punchline, serving only to punctuate the scene and move the ridiculous story forward.

Loyalty and betrayal, trust and mistrust; like the leading players, these concepts are abbruptly brought to life in order to lend emotion to a scene, and then burried again when they get in the way of the runaway action. The leading characters bicker for a bit, breaking up with pointless melodrama what would otherwise have been 2 ¾ hours of pointless action. There's no coherence or reason behind the disputes. Loyalties shift as quickly as do the laws of physics. Flung into a cartoon reality, the viewer quickly abandons hope of finding sense or meaning in the characters' protestations, or of making sense of their world.

The visual effects are top-notch, as one would expect from such a big production film. The animation of Davy Jones's face is particularly good, conveying pitch-perfect the subtle emotions Nighy brings to the character. The technicians and artists are less convincing when it comes to animating other sequences. In particular, a swashbuckling match in the riggings shows its artificial roots. And unfortunately for the film, the impressive effects do not make up for what the film lacks.

Johnny Depp's performance is just about the only saving grace of the film. His antics as protagonist Captain Jack Sparrow are worthy of a better venue. Maybe he should do a one-man show — in character. I'd much rather see that than another installment in this film franchise. Geoffrey Rush and Bill Nighy gave very good prformances too, making the best of the parts they were given. I'd just prefer to see their talents put to better use.

Each PotC film has represented a further departure from reality. Neither the physical world nor the emotional motivations of the characters makes any sense at all. Perhaps this sort of departure from reality is what the world needs right now. This might explain the movie's blockbuster box-office performance over the weekend.

PotC3:aWE is an entertaining film, but don't expect more from it than you would from a Saturday morning cartoon.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.