No Country for Old Bloggers

[Spoiler alert]

I just watched "No Country for Old Men" and I walked away wondering what to think of it all. I know that art that makes you think is good art, but I'm not sure that this is good art. The craft of the movie was incredible - the acting, writing, cinematography. The images, characters, and settings left a deep impression. It reminded me of the movie Brazil, by Terry Gilliam, another movie full of artful and disturbing images.

The ending surprised me. About half way through, I thought "This is just like The Terminator, except with a guy instead of a machine". Of course, the really good stories don't end the way you expect them to. But there is the question of the message. Where does it leave us, after it's all over? Am I like the sheriff? Is there no one left to mourn when it's all over? From the last scene, I get the impression that there is a message of redemption, but in this case, it seems to come only with death.

Between Javier Bardem winning the Oscar for this and Heath Ledger winning for The Dark Knight, it seems like our society appreciates the purity of the psychopathic vision that these actors so effectively portray. Not my cup of tea, and I wonder what the psychological impact of such deeply imagined and realized visions might be. I recently saw The Terminator again, and I realized that Arnie's destructive rampage probably wasn't unlike what the tragedy at Columbine High School must have been like.

Maybe such images don't affect us all.
Maybe those kids never watched The Terminator or countless movies like it.
Maybe this is truly "No Country for Old Bloggers"...