No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood are two movies I've been anticipating since they first came out, but for my usual reasons (idiocy, primarily) I didn't see them straight away. As 2008 Best Picture Oscar nominees the two films are often discussed together, and I've read a lot of Internet bitch-fights about which movie is superior, so I decided to watch them back-to-back.
I started with No Country For Old Men and saved There Will Be Blood for last, expecting to like it better, but as it turned out No Country For Old Men is possibly the best movie I've seen all year bar Life is Beautiful.
As a Coen brothers film you can expect four things: visual splendour, meticulous and authentic dialogue, strong performances and a gripping storyline. It delivers on all counts.
Roger Deakins perfectly photographs the harsh, dusty desert, bright-white skies and blistering heat of the Tex/Mex border. The sparse score accentuates the beauty and elevates the landscape to character status, just as Deakins did with the blinding snow of Minnesota in Fargo. I could watch the whole film muted and still enjoy it, such is its beauty.
But I wouldn't want to, of course, not least because Tommy Lee Jones puts a soulful spin on the Texas sheriff character he's played many times before, and Javier Bardem is chilling to the core as Anton Chigurh. He gave me the heebie-jeebies big time.
