No Country for Old Men
photo taken from wikipedia.org
In 2007, the famous filmmaking-duo Coen Brothers released the film No Country for Old Men. The film was a big-hit critically and financially. This had marked a new level of fame for Joel and Ethan Coen, who had come out of low budget film-making and created a fabulous portrayal of evil. In this film, the true nature of evil was addressed and the steps it would take to fight it.
One of the main characters of the film is named Anton Chigurh, played by Academy-Award Winner Javier Bardem. He is an escaped psychotic killer who has been hired by drug dealers to hunt down a stolen bag of cash. Throughout the film, he is wounded and nearly killed several times, yet always seems to escape death at the last moment.
By using this character, the two directors were able to personify evil on film. The killer is the very nature of evil. He cannot be killed, or stopped. As each character meets Chigurh, they play a game of life and death. Through a random sequence of events, some characters are able to avoid death, while others are not. This metaphor shows that death waits for no man. The only way to escape death, is to try and avoid it. You can only run so far.
