But more than just great moments, No Country for Old Men has a tonal and thematic cohesiveness to it that's truly remarkable. It might as well have been named Ode to Fatalism because what’s it’s really about is the inevitable fate that awaits all its characters whether they know it not. That theme, present in the subtext of one of the very first shots of the film (a long look down a straight road that leads off into eternity), eventually moves into the foreground, becoming the centerpiece of the film's last two scenes.
In the first half of the film, this theme of destiny and fatalism (man's inability to do anything other what's already been decided for him) are only hinted at. Take that shot of the highway, for instance. Or the scene in which Josh Brolin’s Llewellyn Moss decides against his better judgment (and even his own will) to go back to the scene of the drug deal gone bad that he happened upon earlier that day. But by the end of the film, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is talking openly about the future that awaits him and his powerlessness to do anything to alter it. And Chigurgh, fleeing the scene of his final murder, gets sideswiped, severely damaging both himself and his car, even though the road ahead was clear and he had a green light.
Perhaps most interestingly, the Coens orchestra the copious violence of the film in exactly the opposite way, moving from explicit at the start of the film to implicit at the end. The film opens with two incredibly brutal deaths. And though there are many more deaths to come (Chigurgh kills something like twelve people), what the audience actually sees of these deaths is less and less the further into the story you get. It’s as if the Coens, having planted the hook with the bracing violence of the film's first third, are slowly forcing their audience, by refusing to slake their bloodlust, to contemplate just what it is this violence is meant to communicate. The genius of that plan being that the audience, already on the hook, is very likely to follow them down that rabbit hole.
It’s hard to overstate how much of a departure this film is for the Coen brothers. But at the same time, it’s easy to see what drew them to the film in the first place (themes of fate and destiny, colloquial dialogue, funny accents, grizzled old men, etc.). But the quantum leap they’ve taken here by shedding their usually juvenile ways bodes well for their future. Here’s hoping they’ve gotten all the Raising Arizonas and Ladykillers out of their system.
