//No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men — Contains Spoilers

by cari | March, 2008

I can’t remember the last time I was as scared for a character as I was during the scene between the gas station owner and Chigurh. I so wanted to warn him because he had no idea what he was facing. “Friendo, run away!!!”

I love that Carla Jean refused to call the coin. That she died on her own terms and rightly put the onus back onto Chigurh. As she said, “The coin don’t have no say. It’s just you.” Someone once asked me why I thought he had killed Carla Jean after all. It’s because he checked his shoes for blood on the porch.

Some people were frustrated that there was no stand-off between Sheriff Bell and Anton Chigurh, but the words that literally came into my head when the credits began was “Of course.”. And no, I didn’t see “The Sopranos” finale.

Several people have said that the movie should have ended with Chigurh
 walking away from the car crash. While I can see their point, for me, I love Sheriff Bell describing his dreams at the end. They really spoke to his feelings of loss and helplessness and being “over-matched”, as he said to Ellis earlier. But also a sense that everyone has a place to go in the end. There is a measure of comfort in that.

Something about the stillness of his fear and the calmness of his horror made it feel like it ran so deep and so true and that it was for all of us, on our behalf. In that stark bare bones landscape it is just Chigurh, this timeless unstoppable force of Nature against all of humanity. Against what makes us human.

It reminded me a bit of the ending for “Fargo” when Marge Gunderson is driving with Grimsrud in the back of the patrol car and she says:

“So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there? And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd.

And for what? For a little bit of money. There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’t you know that?

And here y’are. And it’s a beautiful day. Well. I just don’t understand it.”

And she looks so sad that anything like this could even exist.

Then she goes home and is happy for, and supportive of, Norm getting his mallard on the three-cent stamp.

That’s the ballast, the world righting itself.

[ Topic Pop Culture, Ridiculosity | Comments Off ]

Dream One

by cari | March, 2008

I wrote this message to my brother this morning:

Try not to be alarmed, but I dreamed you died last night. Or that you had previously died in another dream and this was the sequel. Mom made me handle the funeral details and I didn’t even know where to begin. I looked up places online and called but the two reps I talked to were so unhelpful. I wasn’t upset yet because I couldn’t really understand how you could be dead. I think it was a brain aneurysm or something like that, happens quickly and unexpectedly.

The anxiety dream of the 21st century is no longer taking a test for which you’ve not studied or showing up in your undies. It’s dealing with clueless customer service reps on the phone who endlessly pass you along and put you on hold and accomplish nothing. It was positively Kafka-esque.

Then I looked in the newspaper for funeral info and I was all bewildered and asked mom if she wanted you to be cremated or buried and she said buried but not one of those burials where you can see the person (like under a porch or in a stairwell). Apparently in my dream, there was a danger of that happening. Then she said you’d already taken care of some stuff beforehand, like bought your own coffin the way some people buy cemetery plots “for later use”.

After I woke up all disturbed, I was writing it down and I wrote that Mom said she didn’t want you buried in plain view and that made me realize the significance of “Daniel Plainview” digging for oil.

Sometimes when I’m waiting for the train, in my head I try to imitate Daniel Day-Lewis saying, “Hello. My name is Daniel Plainview, and I’m an oil man. This is my son and partner, H.W..” but I am really imitating Bill Hader’s impersonation of DD-L in that ‘I Drink Your Milkshake’ skit on SNL. After Chris and I [re-]watched No Country for Old Men on Sunday, we started talking with Texan accents.

I really love that movie so much. Mom got it for me for my birthday along with “I Am America (And So Can You!)” [by Stephen Colbert]. I regret buying you the audio book because you are missing out on the stickers and mazes and stuff. But I was thinking about you being into audio books.

I’m pretty sure my dream was about my fear of losing the people I care about most but also about being abandoned and rejected…Usually when I have meaningful dreams about myself I’m an animal like a cat or a bird, or there’s a bird or cat that symbolizes me, but not this time. [Note: the animals are always male.]

[ Topic Dreams, Neuroses, Pop Culture, Ridiculosity | Comments Off ]