What's bullshit is the idea that they don't make movies like they used to anymore. What isn't is that Joel and Ethan Coen don't make movies like anyone else. Maybe more so than any other filmmaker out there -- okay, sans Tarantino -- their works have a certain Wizard of Oz-like je ne sais quoi to them, a veil of all-seeing prestige, a room of props and puppet strings the door to which is crept open JUST ENOUGH to let in a slight hint of light, just enough to let us in on the eternal joke of life: death.
Only the Coen brothers don't quit at "just enough". All the way back to their rapturously bleak 1984 debut "Blood Simple" you'll find a wavy trail of bread crumbs that don't exactly lead anywhere, but also don't exactly break away either. They instill the notion into the viewer that nothing is as simple as it seems, and that there can be no clean getaways. With their marvelous new feature "Inside Llewyn Davis" the Coens may have come closer than ever before to fanning the flame of their idealistic passive-aggression: the strive and struggle, hurt and heartbreak, of being forever almost famous. For a pair so figuratively conspiratorial, it's certainly the farthest they've reached toward a sentiment so damningly universal. "Inside Llewyn Davis" is also one of, if not their very best yet.
Folk music courses through the veins of the Coen brothers' previous efforts, because their movies are all essentially about PEOPLE. Their rep for fine-tuned casting is on ample display in "Llewyn", which casts "Drive's" Oscar Isaac in the title role of a beatnik folk singer in the beatnik generation, the respective stars of which don't exactly align. The world seems and looks stonewalled, cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (who, oh wow, also shot Alexander Sokurov's splendid recent "Faust") blanketing but not burying 1960's New York City in crisp, grim colors and the equal lack thereof. (Regular Coen costume designer Mary Zophres deserves just as much credit as Delobonnel for style choices here.)
The staging of "Llewyn Davis" is further kept alive and moving by the acting. Isaac is a flawlessly adept performer, a character actor for much of his career whose sleepy eyes and large features are mainly covered by Llewyn's unkempt facial hair. He lends the rocker a doggedness that feels understated and soulful, the sparse brand of wisdom that comes from an elongated period of time on the road. If he wasn't one before, Isaac gives a star-making performance. This is his show, and he quietly commands it.
And what would a Coen brothers movie be without a merry cast of secondary personalities? Carey Mulligan shines as Llewyn's ex Jean, now in a professional and private relationship with songster Jim (a lean, restrained Justin Timberlake.) Fitting the bill as well is Coen favorite John Goodman as a wealth- and sickly but still big-mouthed troubadour Llewyn meets along the way.
As always with their movies, the Coen brothers' "Inside Llewyn Davis" boils down to the singularity and exclusivity of its images. Makes sense, considering what inspiration they must have found in the immortal record sleeve of Bob Dylan's second studio album, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", on which a young Dylan huddles beside a woman as they trek down an icy city street. The film takes place in 1961, two years before the disc was released. It's amazing then, for a movie set during a cultural rising of the tide, one focused on the increasing prominence of the creative individual, "Inside Llewyn Davis", even by today's standards, feels like a grieving artifact already ahead of its time. read more at: http://letterboxd.com/nickondras/film/inside-llewyn-davis/
