No Country for Old Men Explained

No Country for Old Men is a compelling story with a rather ambiguous end. What's the film trying to say?

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[vastolorde]

I can't believe I watched the entire movie without realizing it had NO music at all. Just... wow

[kellysekai]

I think the scariest part of the film is that fact that it has no music. It makes it so much more immersive and real. Real life has no soundtrack.

[genuinetrueblue]

what I personally learned from this movie is that if you ever discover a bag full of money you must always check for a tracking device.

[jasper]

My favorite little detail in this movie is when Bell goes into the hotel room finding the vent open with the coin that Anton used to unscrew the screws off. The coin was heads up just like with the coin toss in the gas station.
A nod to that 50/50 chance he had and Bell got to live.

[PhillyJohnny]

The gas station owner's role is way underrated in my opinion - even if it's just one scene. 100% believable character.

[hippiecheezburger]

I love how Anton, Bell and Moss never really cross paths, even the gun battle, Moss never really sees who he is shooting at or who is shooting at him

[CarlWheatley-wicl]

The matter of fact death of the protagonist Moss has to be one of the most jolting events in movie history. It demolishes all your preconceptions and the unwritten laws of movies. it leaves you completely hanging in the wind. Pure chaos.

[pashton]

For me the most intense scene was when Carson was going up the stairs thinking he had a productive day and achieved something just to realize that Chigur was behind him. Who then said “Hello Carson, Let’s Go To Your Room”. Carson didn't even had to look behind to know that the angel of death was there for him. he knew it out of pure intuition.

[bloodfalconfantastic]

This movie taught me that if I find a case of cash, always empty it out into a new bag.

[jcolosi]

I like how you let the car crash jarringly interrupt you mid sentence. Nicely done.

[RealElevenTimes]

My dumbass didn't understand that the dead guy the camera was focusing on for 10 seconds was our protagonist, so I was just left confused till the film ended lmao.

[winniecooper]

The fact that No Country for Old Men gave the feeling of dread and impending doom in every scene without a score or soundtrack says a lot about the creative ingenuity and masterminds of the Cohen brothers. I love how the villain was portrayed as having the same 50/50 chance of life or death doing mundane, everyday things like driving a car through an intersection just like the rest of us. It gave me a feeling of much needed relief actually.

[johnharmon]

Chigurh isn't some embodied cosmic principle of death. He just thinks he is. He's really just a person who kills other people.

Carla Jean points this out to him... and he kills her. She didn't lose the game. She got killed for not playing it. That doesn't mean she should have played it.

I think that her refusing to acknowledge Chigurh as some sort of divine agent of death was the most courageous act depicted in the movie, and I think it shook him badly, which is why he got in the car accident.

But her courage didn't SAVE her. Nor did God intercede on her behalf.

Goodness and moral courage do not equate to victory.

And that's why it's no country for old men.

[typologetics]

I agree with a previous comment that Carla Jean did not lose. In the novel she is just another hapless victim, but that must not have felt right to the Cohens. Without consciously doing so, the movie's creators make CJ into a hero--even a Christ figure. She exposes Chigurh, calling him a liar and pointing out that all his murders are his choices. Chigurh believes he is a godlike personification of fate, an implacable and unstoppable force of nature. CJ strips him of this delusion, though she must sacrifice her life to do so. She reveals him to be--like the chigger his name resembles--a tiny, soulless parasite. The scene between them is the real showdown where the innocent hero takes on the villain and triumphs even in death. Chigurh leaves thinking he has won, but he is now stripped of the aura of invincibility and experiences the result in the car crash. When we last see him, he is as Satan is portrayed in the Bible--abroad and still dangerous, but a wounded, crippled foe whose days are all too obviously numbered.

[ericlane]

The unraveling of the snack wrapper is one of the most brilliant sources of building tension I’ve ever seen in a movie.

[spencerherron]

I think his dream was meant to say that good men like Bell and Moss have always existed in spite of the world, and his memory of his father carried the torch like the old timers before him and his own memory will one day for who comes next.

[ionia]

The message of the movie is "The moment you know you are old is the moment you no longer recognize the world around you, and the world has no place for you in it."

[Phi]

Theorists: "Never kill the protagonist off-screen."
Coen brothers: "Challenge accepted."

[samwise]

I diverge with this take of the ending between Chigur and Carla Jean. Like Typologetics states in another comment, Carla Jean doesn't acquiesce to fate or give in to Chigur's game at all. By playing the coin toss game she would essentially be losing, not physically, but morally and spiritually.

This is the real "showdown" if you will, like all the old westerns. And not with your typical gunslinger alpha-male like the other characters, but a sweet young woman. One who starts very child-like in the beginning and has one of the largest character developments in the movie.

By the end she's wise and brave: against the literal face of death no less. And it's so subtle you wouldn't even notice like other movies attempts at "subverting your expectations."

By choosing not to call the coin she essentially breaks the horrible cycle of Chigur's game. And you can see the abject terror in his eyes for the first time because his facade of fate is unmasked. He is just a horrible killer portraying himself as a hand of fate.

I've always seen Chigur as a supernatural figure in the movie, but watching that scene makes me realize he's just a huge bully. He threatens and murders people much weaker than him, and who better than a motherly woman to call him on being a bully? He still kills her in the end but you can see the failure and disdain in his eyes.

Carla Jean makes her last stand, like all the great drifters of the old west. But she does so with principles and character, instead of physical weapons, and Chigur has to face who he really is.

[mjcbryan]

Lessons learned:
1) never return to the scene
2) check the cash / bag for trackers