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198.151.12.8
In Reply to: RE: Thanks, Jazz! posted by Winston Smith on May 01, 2008 at 22:12:06
It is a story based upon a murder and it involves a person who kills about as automatically as he breathes. It's not gratuitously bloody like one of those Hostel or Saw movies. But people are killed. The themes are rather mature and literary, the nature of violence in society and whether our time is different in that respect. It is in some sense a character study rather than an action movie. The characters are quirky as those in any Coen brothers movie. The dialog is very well written. I don't know if many 13 year olds care about themes or dialog. Maybe he should start with the Big Lebowski, a more light hearted Coen Brothers movie.
Yes, I agree with tunenut that No Country may not be suitable viewing for your 13-yr old son. I was going purely by picture, and you can pick out distinct shrubs and even leaves in chaparral...it was filmed and produced for Blu-ray with incredible clarity. But there are scenes of intense violence.
Another of Disney's amazing picture quality BDs is Bridge to Terabithia. It's really sad, but worthwhile, and a great family movie for kids your son's age.
If you like Pixar movies on Blu-ray, I highly recommend "Surf's Up". Not Pixar, but the animation is practically as good and it's a very entertaining film with a nice message that winning isn't everything, Good for the whole family. Picture and sound are very good.
-------------Call it, friendo.
I don't remember much in the way of scenes of "intense violence" except the choking of the deputy early in the piece. There's actually very little violence in the normal sense of fight scenes. It's basically just more than a few killings are which are done quickly (walk in, shoot, walk out), clinically—if one can use that word here—and emotionlessly. The frightening thing is not the killing but the sheer casualness of the way that the killer goes about it.
I think tunenut really nailed it when he said:
"It is a story based upon a murder and it involves a person who kills about as automatically as he breathes. It's not gratuitously bloody like one of those Hostel or Saw movies. But people are killed. The themes are rather mature and literary, the nature of violence in society and whether our time is different in that respect. It is in some sense a character study rather than an action movie. "
The only change I'd make is to the last sentence I quoted. I definitely see it as a character study of several people in a situation which sometimes has a lot of action. I'd place the emphasis on character study higher than I think tunenut's sentence suggests.
David Aiken
I see the film as an exploration of the three characters who represent law, lawlessness and the common man torn between the two. In that way it's another exposition on the battle between good and evil. No shortage of films about that. But this one was very unique in many ways, with good symbolism (the satchel, the transponder, the pressurized air tank that punched holes in deadbolts and skulls). Also the turns of a phrase and dialog were incredible.The violence and its aftermath were graphic. A driver is shot from long range in the throat and forehead. The way wounds were shown was probably the most detailed I have seen in any film, and the Coen brothers did not shy away from putting their make-up artists to the test. I've never seen a gunshot wound in real life, but I was thoroughly convinced that's what I was seeing in No Country. It was definitely violent, but not gratuitously so. The Coens show what they need you to see. No more and no less.
-------------Call it, friendo.
I've only seen it once, on DVD and not in the cinema, and honestly I don't remember how the wounds looked. I simply remember the casualness of the killing. I certainly had no sense that the camera dwelt on the wounds and I certainly agree with you that the Coens show no more than they need to in order to present their vision.
Before anyone jumps on me for not seeing this in the cinema, I would have loved to but for one reason and that reason is why most of my viewing from now on is likely to be on video. In the last 18 months my eyes have started to develop cataracts, far too early for any thought of surgery and not a problem in daylight, but films seen in a cinema now look slightly blurred and out of focus to me, and colours look overly soft and muted. My LCD screen has a much brighter image and at my normal viewing distance movies look well focussed and colours can look clear and bright when that's what the film shows. If the film has a reputation for very good photography or it's a film I really want to see, I tend to wait now and watch it on video so I can appreciate the visual side of things much better. That's what I did with this film.
David Aiken
The reason I qualified my assessment is that the main characters seem, to me at least, to represent ideas and themes as much as actual human beings. Anton, for example, seems to be the embodiment of indifferent fate, not even malevolent, just random with his coin flip. And he comes with his best deal, which is not a great deal, but it is after all, a deal we all face sooner or later. Real human motivation or emotion was lacking. In that sense, I did not find this movie so much about character as about ideas, although ideas made manifest in human form. Feel free to disagree, the great thing about great movies, and I count this as one, is that they allow multiple interpretations.
I didn't think the characters represented themes or ideas, but I did think they personified certain aspects of human character. I certainly didn't think Anton represented fate. I think he was just what he was described as by another character, a psychopath with no sense of emotion and a strangely twisted sense of honour.
And I certainly agree about great movies allowing multiple interpretations, especially by each of us individually over time. The thing that makes a work of art great, regardless of its type, in my view is its ability to reveal something new to us each time we revisit it. We keep finding new things in great art and our appreciation of it grows. That's what keeps us coming back to it.
David Aiken
Yeah, but that one has "Nihilists"!
Scary!
SF
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