| |
BLOOD SIMPLE
Directed by Joel Coen
Warning: There are spoilers in this review.
BLOOD SIMPLE is at once a destruction of noir and a noir itself, mocking the genre in a few different ways. In a classic noir, a femme fatale would generally be a woman who would, in one way or another, get a man to do things for her, particularly murder. Here, the femme fatale is unwitting, yet her man is still driven to cover up her crime. The funny thing is, she did not even commit the crime! A private detective, hired to kill the woman, Abby, and her man, devises a plan of his own. Instead of killing two people, he steals the woman’s gun, doctors a photo of the two people sleeping, shows it to his employer, the woman’s husband, named Marty takes the money, and kills Marty with the woman’s gun, planting it at the murder. In comes the woman’s lover, Ray, who sees Abby’s gun and Marty’s dead body, thinks Abby is the killer, and cleans up the crime.
It also takes jabs at the stupidity of the situations noir characters are put into. The scene mentioned above is a prime example of this, as well as an example of how it mocks the femme fatale. However, the best illustration of this comes at the film’s closing moments. As the private detective is in Abby’s apartment, after killing Ray and being shot by Abby, Abby tells him that she is not afraid of him any more, and calls him Marty. At this, he laughs one more time before he dies. The entire situation these characters were put into is so ridiculous that they do not even know who they are killing or trying to be killed by.
All of this is not to say that the film does not work as a noir itself, and a brilliant one at that. It is filled with dark visuals, murder, sharp dialogue, shady characters, and some great plot twists. The plot twists, shocking as they are, feel natural. There are no contrivances whatsoever. The first major twist comes in the scene mentioned above. We have just seen the pictures of a murdered Abby and Ray, yet Ray walks into the room. While shocking us and keeping us off-balance, it has a natural feel, like this is what should be happening. A minor scene late in the film sums up my feelings on the plot twists. It is a slow-motion shot of a newspaper being thrown against a screen door that Abby and Ray are standing next to. It feels natural, a regular every day event, yet when it smacks into the door, it made me jump.
The Coens do some really amazing things with their camera. One shot tracks along a bar, and as it approaches a drunk man with his head down on the bar, it goes over him. This is the definition of a witty camera. Nearly every shot is gorgeous to look at. This being their first film, before master cinematographer Roger Deakins started to team up with them, showed a lot of promise. They have not disappointed.
Every time I watch BLOOD SIMPLE, it gets better and better, which just shows that all of the Coens’ films need to be seen over and over.
My Rating: Masterpiece
Review by Jared Mills
Back to Reviews
|
