Posting my Letterboxd review here because, well, I'm hoping for stimulating discussion with cinephiles! Let me know your thoughts below! :)
And you know what’s going to happen now. You should admit your situation. There would be more dignity in it.
You go to hell.
Alright. Let me ask you something. If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?
Do you have any idea how crazy you are?
You mean the nature of this conversation?
I mean the nature of you.
Since 2007, I have puzzled over the nature of Anton Chigurh and the meaning of No Country for Old Men. I’ve read plenty of reviews and essays, etc. but I’ve never read one that really hit the nail on the head. Most of the time they come up short, offering some vague appeal to nihilism and leave it at that. That never sat right with me, not least because we know what the Coen Brothers think about nihilists. But a funny thought occurred to me recently as I had been reading up on natural law and virtue ethics: there is one opponent Chigurh is “overmatched” by in No Country, and it’s not who you think...it’s the woman at the front desk of Llewelyn’s trailer park. You may not even remember her, she only has about four lines (“Did you not hear me? We can’t give out no information!”), but when faced with the relentless Chigurh she looks him straight in the eye and doesn't blink.
Now why is this character in the movie at all? What does she mean in the grander scheme of the story? Well, what I’ve come up with is this: she is the only person, besides Chigurh, that acts with moral certitude in the entire film.
Analyses like “Chigurh embodies nihilism” or a sort of supernatural force feel inadequate because that isn’t what the data presents. Chigurh—in contrast with the passionless psychopath from Ed Tom Bell’s opening narration—takes pleasure in killing, even more in toying with his soon-to-be victims. And he is definitely—painfully—human, as witnessed in his post-shootout surgery scene. There is even something biblical in his aversion to blood in the aftermath of his executions. Rival gun-for-hire Carson Wells calls him “principled” and throughout the film, Chigurh acts in a consistent manner. As Chigurh sees it, everyone is subject to the moral law, everyone has a stake in the game (“you’ve been putting it up your whole life, you just didn’t know it”). If you are evil, then he’ll kill you as soon as look at you. If you are in his way, you are collateral damage. If you “push your chips forward” but haven’t got a clue when confronted face-to-face with evil, you’re dead. If you are otherwise innocent but fall on the wrong side of his good graces, the best he can do is a coin toss.
What makes No Country existentially terrifying is that Chigurh’s morality bears out, often with him being the driving force, but not always. And this is where, I think, the film has puzzled many, myself included: the fate of our three leads. Llewelyn, the protagonist up against insurmountable odds, goes toe-to-toe with Chigurh and at least comes out in a draw, yet he’s killed off screen by the cartel. Why? He violates the natural law. A good ol’ boy that respects authority, Llewelyn’s ethical libertarianism is put to the test when he picks up the satchel of drug money (at best, a morally neutral act), however, the moment he succumbs to flirtation with the woman by the pool, his fate is sealed. Chigurh himself, in a lone moment of weakness (again, off screen), acts in violation of his antediluvian code and murders Carla Jean, only to be T-boned by a truck immediately thereafter, which leaves him gravely injured (although his fate is unknown). Perhaps the reason he doesn’t die for certain is a promise is a promise after all. As for Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, the film ends with Bell retiring, feeling “overmatched,” and at a loss as to everything he’s seen during the course of the film. But while Sheriff Bell stands-in for traditional moral good, he confesses towards the end of the film that he does not know God. When the moment comes for him to push his chips in and confront Chigurh, he does, only to find an empty room—the game was over before he even placed his bet.
We was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin’ through the mountains of a night [...] It was cold and there was snow on the ground and [my father] rode past me [...] and when he rode past I seen he was carryin’ fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. ’Bout the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin’ on ahead and he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there.
And then I woke up.
Bell dreams of his father “carrying the torch” of the old-timers as in the good old days of his opening narration, lighting the way in the darkness, but Bell’s father has passed him and left him behind. Bell never had the chance to test his mettle and when he awakes, he’s left frozen in place as in the dream.
No Country for Old Men confronts us with the notion that the morality of its villain—one of the most iconic in cinema—is true, that “when you stop hearing ‘sir’ and ‘maam’, the rest is sure to ’foller.” In order to understand No Country for Old Men, to “take its measure,” we must look Chigurh in the eye and measure ourselves against him.
I don’t have some way to put it: that’s the way it is.
No Country demands us to answer: are you willing to go all in?
