The Categorised Review: Volume One

Sheriff Bell and the demons he faces (No Country for Old Men analyses)

‪No Country for Old men‬ is a convention breaking western, one with a different perspective to any western set before it. The conventional western theme of 'change' is present in No Country, but not in the way many westerns have incorperated it before. We see the opposite side of the law and how this change effects the lawmen. The theme has been flipped onto it's head, previously, outlaws have dealt with this change, films like '‪Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid‬' and '‪The Wild Bunch‬', showed the outlaws running from society and lawfulness, ultimately ending in their demise. No Country shows us an entiely different situation, we see a sheriff as he struggles to deal with the changes to criminals. Instead of embarking on a journey across america to escape this change, he chases the criminals, always one step behind them. Sheriff Bell is an old man in a world in a world that has surpassed him. Anton Chigurh is a formidable oppenant, the polar opposite to the Sheriff Bell. Chigurh shows no remorse, despite all of the atrocious unlawful actions he commits. Sheriff Bell talks remorsefully about a young man he sent to the electric chair. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is a lawful man in a lawless world. The Sheriff's story peaks when he revists the crime scene where Lewlyn was killed. As he vists the crime scene, he notices the lock is gone, a calling sign of Chigurh. As he enters, he readies his gun, something he prides himself on not doing. The dread of death, the fear of Chigurh and the change that occurred long ago came to ahead in that moment. The sheriff enters the room, Chigurh is nowhere to be seen.
‪No Country for Old Men‬ is not telling Lewlyn's story or Chigurhs. It's the story of Sheriff Ed Bell as he comes to the conclusion that the world has changed and his old world values have been left behind but not like other western protaganists, Sheriff Bell doesn't try run from this change, he instead accepts it.
No Coutry for Old Men is a film about acceptance at its core. Whether it's accepting the fact our time passed, that our lives are so dependant on chance or that we are both special and not all at the same time.

Chigurh's twisted logic summarises this bleak acceptance perfectly. Chigurh's coin flip, makes him seem like a divine monster, who sets destiny's plans into motion. The coin toss is an unknowing game of life and death. After we first see Chigurh play the game he gives the shopkeeper the coin, he tells him to not let it get it mixed in with the rest, it's special but still just a coin.