The artifice of eternity

Saturday Biz and I sat the "best picture Oscar nominees" gamut, courtesy of AMC (which we learned during the trivia question and answer period stands for American Multi-Cinema). It was a lot less grueling than I expected it to be, even with There Will Be Blood lasting about seventy years! Seriously, Michael Clayton? Juno? Really? The Clooney was excellent and Tom Wilkinson was sublime, but best of the year? The Academy said so and I was in no position to argue, having seen exactly one newly released movie last year (Waitress; cute, hokey ending, don't try to make me dislike Nathan Fillion or I will cut you).

LOVED Atonement - loved it. But I'm a sucker for having my heart-wrenched and I would have gladly dragged Briony across a muddy pit by her hair. My chief complaint with Juno was the main character's reaction to the positive pregnancy test. I've been on the unwelcome plus side of one of those tests - summer after senior year - and trust me - there was no cracking wise in my story. I was hardly in a red licorice whip place afterwards. Maybe she'd already suffered her sturm und drang with the first two tests and had resigned herself finding a solution but that scene was so dishonest to me that the rest of the movie was even cartoonier than was intended. Even so, I love JK Simmons and Alison Janney and would happily watch them dig for oil in vast barren landscapes.

They ended with No Country for Old Men, the title of which I discovered is from a Yeats poem when I happened to read it last night. For the sake of my dreaming later that evening I wish they'd left us with a less compelling character than Chigurh but he certainly deserved his award.

SPOILERS FOLLOW



I'm not a fan of excessive graphic violence so this isn't a film I'd watch over and over again; on the other hand, none of it felt gratuitous. Unfortunately, once I saw a kitty cat onscreen I was watching any dark or ominous scenes through the hand over my eyes and missed a lot of the subtleties.

Specifically - the scene where Sheriff Bell and Chigurh are on opposite sides of the door to room 114. Chigurh (and the audience) sees Bell's reflection in the blown-out lock. That the room appears empty once Bell goes in just messes with me. Am I supposed to assume that reality is suspect from that point forward? Was there a clue that the film was moving in that direction that I missed? An unreliable narrator is one thing; one that is only unreliable for the last 20 minutes or so is another.

So far I've seen theories that the whole movie was Sheriff Bell's dream, that Bell is killed in the motel room, and that Chigurh moved to the other side of the doorway and slipped out behind Bell once he'd entered the room. I have issues with all of those explanations. How did you interpret that scene? (Support your thesis using evidence from the movie as opposed to the book - I think the book version makes a lot more sense but don't see any reason to believe that's how it went down in the film.)