For me, extreme violence in a film needs to redeem itself by expressing some kind of insight, message or point that could not have been arrived at otherwise. And I’m just not sure that No Country delivered any insights that were worth the truckload of disturbing images with which it was packaged.

If the message was that evil sometimes wins, for my money the Canadian film Love and Human Remains tells that story better, with the added message that evil sometimes dwells very close to home. Donnie Darko also tells that same story in a more interesting, and rather less disturbing way. There are plenty of others.

If the message was that death is implacable, No Country is a long way from beating the classic Ingmar Bergmann film The Seventh Seal. And if the message was that the US kind of went to hell after Reagan was elected, that’s really not news to any thinking people – although generally for different reasons than McCarthy & Coen et al. seem to indicate.

I don’t find over-the-top violence entertaining for its own sake, and I’m disturbed by people who do. And the killer, as well as his prey, had a fatal flaw, at least for me: they both bled, so obviously they were human, but yet they were inhumanly skilled and unstoppable. After Chigurh walked away from yet another maiming incident, my suspension of disbelief went straight out the window.

Fortunately, this season has provided an equally beautiful – in terms of both cinematography and acting – and for my money, much more compelling, “meditation on good and evil”: Atonement. There are truths told about evil in that film that will sock you in the gut, and whatever violence takes place is more in the human heart (where it more commonly resides) than in the Karo syrup.

Happy New Year.

Bobbi