Non è un paese per vecchi

The Coens perfectly capture the essence of McCarthy’s brutal vision of existence. In writing this neo-Western, McCarthy is giving the lie to the sentimental view of the west that the classic Western purveys, eliding the violence and racism involved in the destruction of native people… The Coens bring the book to life with some of their best filmmaking—exquisitely devised sequences, an uncanny eye for the quirks of human behavior and ability to cast just the right actors.

The film is at times so deadpan, so stone-faced, that it’s hard not to feel as if the Coens are having a quiet chuckle beneath it all. Perhaps the most impressive thing about No Country is that it expands the directors’ palette while also telling a thoroughly gripping story and remaining true to their voice.

Adapted from what is generally considered a minor Cormac McCarthy novel, No Country for Old Men is a very well-made genre exercise, but I can’t understand why it’s been accorded so much importance, unless it’s because it strokes some ideological impulse… The picture of human nature in No Country for Old Men is so bleak I wonder if it must provide for some a reassuring explanation for our defeatism and apathy in the face of atrocity.