No Country for Old Men

Film poster

 No Country for Old Men is a 2007 adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name. The plot centers around man who discovers a crime scene out in the desert and takes the $2 million that the people were fighting over, only to be pursued by a ruthless hitman. The film is a bleak and morbid modernization of classic western movies that comments on themes of death, fate and free will.

The setting of the film is almost a character in itself, as the desolate West Texas landscape seems to stretch out for eternity and creates the overwhelming sense of emptiness that pervades the entire film. The feeling of being lost, stranded in the desert and without hope is evoked by the setting alone and is continuously reinforced as the plot progresses. The characters travel and struggle, yet despite traveling large distances, remain largely where they began, as they as lost in both a physical desert and the desert of ideology. There is no beginning, no end, only the process of movement from one point to another. This is both an attempted commentary on the nature of life itself as well as how ideology creates a totalizing, singular plane of reality for its subjects.

In addition to the setting, the character of Anton Chigurh (played by Javier Bardem) serves an ideological role in the film. Initially, he is portrayed as a ruthless, efficient and psychopathic hitman, but over time his talents become less human and more supernatural. He becomes almost invulnerable: bullets only harm, yet never kill him and he remains alive even by the end of the film. His ability to track and pursue his targets is uncanny, making him seem omnipotent and all-knowing. In this sense, he is death incarnate, sent to kill sinner and innocent alike, governed more by chance and luck than a sense of justice. 

His role is thus that of an ideological regulator, a physical manifestation of the defense mechanisms put in place to maintain the ideological stratum. When a break in hegemony occurs, his response is similar to that of the white blood cell: he must seek out and destroy abnormal, counter-ideological actors and thoughts. There are casualties and collateral damage, but the robotic, methodical Chigurh has no time for sympathy. Ideology, even when given its most generous personification, cannot be seen as anything but an antihumanist structure that operates on its own internal logic, regardless of human transgression.