The return of the Coens

I am not the biggest of the Coen fans, and although I think that the Big Lebowski *is* the funniest movie of all times and the man who wasn't there the most stylish one, their most recent work has left me fairly unimpressed (oh brother where are thou, intorelable cruelty, ladykillers)... I have never read any Cormac McCarthy either so I really didn't know what to expect.

The movie was ever so stylish, atmospheric and darkly funny at times, in a way that only the Coens can be funny. I think that is what I like the most about them in the end, this dark sense of humor that is found even in the unlikeliest of situations. The story is unimportant, any entangled crime story would do. That is why the most straightforward elements of the plot are left unanswered (who took the money, who killed Llewelyn etc) and the most important crimes are not shown(like in pulp fiction with the suitcase, now that I think about it). Nothing is important plot-wise, replace any detail, any character and the essence of the story would stay the same.

And the essence of the story is what? I read a nice entry in wikipedia on that, stating the usual suspects in the Coens' inventory of obsessions: the absolute evil, the role of chance, fate and choice in human lives. I agree with all of these, especially the issue of choice and I think the scene between Chigurh and Carla Jean demonstrates this perfectly: (obviously, spoiler follows) he's gone to kill her out of a perverse idea of 'keeping his word' although he has no other reason to do it. So she pleads 'you don't have to do this you know' to which he answers 'ok I'll cut you a deal' and tosses his favorite coin and asks her to call it. And she just looks at him, I think in disgust, and says something along the lines of 'fuck you and your stupid coin, me living or dyeing is *not* a matter of luck, this is the ultimate choice, do *you* want to kill me or not'? We never see what happens, but the next scene is of Chigurh, leaving her house, checking underneath his boots: he never likes to step on blood. He has made his choice.

Another curious detail: the three male leads never meet on screen. The movie is like three separate monologues, three parallel lives that collide and crash somewhere beyond our screen. This reminds me of my beloved James Ellroy masterpiece, the big nowhere, where the three main characters, Howard, Mickey and (my favorite) Danny never meet in any scene. They are three people who could very well be just one. Each of them so incomplete but all of them together perfect.