The Truth About Cats and Dogs

I saw "No Country For Old Men," for the second time last night. I will be honest, I did enjoy it more the first time I saw it, on a larger screen. The incredible desert vistas in particular need to be viewed on as large a medium as possible. Fuck "Beowulf," this is really the movie that deserves the IMAX treatment. To my delight, it is almost as much a cinematographers movie as it is a directors', or screenwriters'. (Hot love for the WGA!)

But I do say "almost," instead of absolutely, because "No Country," is in the end, a literary masterpiece. It is the story, the literary devices of symbolism and the believable characterization that make this production so effective. Upon leaving the theater after this repeat viewing I found that my natural temptation to slip into the kind of bleak, existential introspection that this kind of film cultivates was actually offset by a much stronger sense of sheer admiration for Cormac McCarthy, the author of the original novel from which this movie was adapted. The man is a fucking genius, a literary Einstein, and I have yet to actually read a book of his. So well drawn are the characters, so simple and yet so profound is the plot, so distinctly American is his writing, yet so Global are his themes that it is truly almost a religious experience to behold.

I'm consciously refraining from an extensive discussion of the much-heralded performance of Javier Bardem as the film's villain, because I agree with virtually every other major review that I've read. The man deserves every award he will receive for it, and more. His character is the dark heart that beats at the center of "No Country," reliably, methodically circulating violence and brutality to all the locations and other characters. Tommy Lee, Woody Harrelson and Josh Brolin are also perfectly cast in their roles, and the latter actor certainly has a promising future ahead of him after his incredible work in this one. It's definitely tempting to overlook their performances in the wake of Bardem's, but Brolin particularly holds his own, and the interplay between the two is grippingly authentic. Kelly MacDonald plays Brolin's wife to similarly realistic effect, and it is her above anyone else that the audience can identify and sympathize with.

What I'd like to write about though, is a cool series of moments in the film when various characters wander at different times into the same bloody aftermath of a drug deal gone fatally wrong. Don't worry, I'm not spoiling too much here- this dismal scene is the one that truly begins the film's narrative arc, and we are never shown the initiating circumstances, not in flashbacks, or conversations or otherwise. The ground is predictably littered with fallen bodies, guns and shells, but it is the sight of a dead dog which catches the characters' or the camera's attention every time. Everyone, from the unscrupulous drug-affiliated businessman to the honorable Sherrif's deputy, is shocked and moved by the site of this murdered canine, whereas no similarly conspicuous emotional output arises from the sight of the murdered humans. "Aw hell," The deputy says upon viewing the wreckage, "They even shot the dog." This alone should promote some interesting discussion about the relative worth that we place on our animal companions compared to other people, but it is not the only case where dogs, and later, cats, serve as motifs for much larger themes.

On at least two other occasions, we see dogs wounded or killed. In contrast, all the cats that appear in the movie are alive and well- even in abundance in one scene. What are we supposed to take away from this...that the longstanding, loyal companion of human beings, our most common animal friend, is regularly, mercilessly slaughtered while the notoriously independent, fickle, unsociable, halfway feral, feline is permitted to thrive? Personally, I find that this dichotomy is best read as an Aesop like allegory for the film's largest theme: that the honorable have no place in this country. The dogs, like the titular "old men," simply cannot survive by virtue of their noble characteristics. It is precisely their commitments to guardianship, to aid, to love that end up pitting them in life and death struggles against immoral, unfeeling killers like Anton Chigurh. And unfortunately, it is the unsympathetic who always seem to come out on top. Like the cat licking up the milk spilled after his owner's untimely execution, oblivious to the man's grisly fate, some people are content to simply pass through life looking out only for themselves, seizing opportunities to take advantage of the misfortune of others and use it to their gain.

Mind you, I don't believe that cats are evil in reality or that this movie is trying to say that. But what the film is definitely trying to say is that some people are evil, not in some biblical storybook sense, but in the fact that they lack and avoid any emotional attachment to others- and it can therefore operate most effectively as agents of destruction. When the old, ineffective, mournful Sheriff goes to visit one of his mentors, he finds him in a state of utter decay- his house dark, depressing and filthy- and overrun by cats. This is symbolic of what happens even to the most brave and committed of do-gooders- those that do survive to be old cannot help but be overcome and beaten down by the miserable wretchedness of the evil around them. The old mentor is helpless, a prisoner of these unconscionable creatures. Unable to repel or reject them, he simply allows them to have free reign over his place, his person, his soul.

This is, as one might expect, not a pleasant movie. It is a bleak, dismal one, rife with moments of ironic black humor and sour wit. And much like the dogs and the moral characters in the film, we have no choice but to give into it. A hauntingly powerful and accurate look at what kind of a country America can be- a land of opportunity, to be sure, but only for those brutal enough to seize it from others.


In Sum: Like Nietzsche- depressing but awesome. A must-see. Extremely meditative though, so if you don't want to think- stay at home and watch "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila," a much more fun and palatable evil.