REEL REFLECTIONS

SECULARIZING ST. AUGUSTINE IN "NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN"

David Greiser

When Christian academics began writing about postmodern philosophy in the early 1990s, they responded to it in one of two ways. One way involved recoiling in horror while attempting to debunk Derrida, Foucault, and company by demonstrating the absurdity of their "absolute relativism."

A second response was more measured and positive. It involved some appreciative exposition on the parallels they perceived between postmodernism’s suspicion of ideologies and power and the Christian conception of sin. What Derrida and the "masters of suspicion" before him—Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche—unwittingly recovered was nothing less than a secularized version of Augustine’s analysis of original sin and depravity. There is an undeniable parallel between Augustine’s distrust of fallen human nature and the suspicion of human motivation found in much contemporary postmodern philosophy and hermeneutics.

And now to the film review. (There is a connection.) The latest offering from Joel and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men," is a chilling portrayal of human depravity in a world without God. "No Country" studies a collection of people whose intelligence, emotional maturity, moral awareness, and luck vary greatly, but whose characters and motives reveal a twisted, not-to-be-trusted evil.

The film is based on a 2005 novel of the same name by American novelist Cormac McCarthy. Analysts of McCarthy’s novels have long been fascinated by his creation of worlds in which God is absent yet the novels’ inhabitants are evil, even "sinful" by nature.

"No Country" is not an evening of light entertainment. Unlike earlier Coen films such as "O Brother, Where Art Thou," "The Ladykillers," "Intolerable Cruelty," and even the classic "Fargo," this is not a comedy, though it contains darkly comedic moments. It has elements of an action thriller and even the slasher film, but it is essentially a series of character studies.

Unlike earlier Coen films, the characters here are respected rather than lampooned. This is a violent film. But its violence is usually more suggested than graphic. We see bloated bodies, blood leaking across a floor, and a shirt with a bloody bullet hole. Like many a Hitchcock film, the power is in the suggestion.

A sketch of the plot is quickly drawn. Llewelyn Moss (played by Josh Broslin) is a poor but self-confident man living with his child-wife in a west Texas trailer park. He stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad while hunting in the desert. Everyone at the scene is dead, and the drugs are still stashed in the back of a pickup.

Under a nearby tree, Llewelyn finds another body, along with $2 million in cash. By lifting this money for himself, Moss unwittingly becomes the target of a hit man, one Anton Chigurh (yes, that’s the correct spelling).

Chigurh (Javier Bardem) may be the creepiest, most inhuman human character I have ever seen in a movie. He kills his victims with a cattle stun gun and enjoys involving them in games of chance that will determine whether they live or die. Chigurh pursues the overly confident Moss across the country through a series of small towns and cheap hotels.

A second drug dealer learns about this chase and sends his own hit man, Carson Wells (played by Woody Harrelson) in pursuit of the cash. Chasing them all is the world-weary, slow talking sheriff of Moss’ own small town, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones affecting a perfect George Bush drawl).

Sheriff Bell and his small town friends are the moral voice of the film, such as there is one. Over breakfast in the diner, they wonder aloud how their part of the world has devolved from a community where people once said "sir" and "ma’am" into a place where people kill for money, drugs, and even sport. In the end, the sheriff despairs of this new world and turns in his badge. "God isn’t listening any more," he concludes.

The other characters are by turns studies in greed, sadism, and overconfidence. And while the ending of the film won’t satisfy many moviegoers, I think it is a faithful summation of the world the story inhabits. In this story no one is to be trusted; human nature is evil and calculating.

But where can I begin to praise filmmaking this good? While I cannot say I enjoyed the story, I was stunned by the quality of storytelling and artistry. The Coens trust their material so completely that there is no need for a musical sound track. There are long periods in which there is no dialogue. The story often advances in wordless scenes in which characters act rather than speak their motivations. The cat and mouse game between the hunter and hunted is so tense that at points I was reminding myself to breathe.

When characters do speak, the dialog is a fine blend of blue-collar simplicity and the Coens’ own offbeat philosophical wit. People will be quoting lines from this film for years, much as they now repeat lines from "O Brother." The storytelling is lean and spare, and trusts the intelligence of the viewer in making connections.

The visual aspects of the film are outstanding as well. The west Texas scenery is harshly beautiful, a perfect setting for this kind of a story. The attention to detail in the appearance of the rotting corpses and faces still registering surprise at their imminent deaths is not soon forgotten.

With each new film my admiration for the filmmaking of the Coens increases. So does my sense of curiosity about the inner life and psyche of these men who create such canvasses. We are, all of us, a mixture of beauty and evil. For those with the stomach for it, "No Country for Old Men" is a powerful reminder.

—Dave Greiser lives with his own inner mixture of beauty and evil in Hesston, Kansas, where he teaches and directs the Pastoral Ministries Program at Hesston College.