Joseph Natividad

An Uneasy ‘Ending’ to My Day

I just got back from watching the film screening on campus of the award winning film “No Country for Old Men,” which told the story of a dope deal gone totally wrong and an innocent man who gets caught up in the aftermath. It was a heart-stoppingly morbid tale of the depths that someone or some group of people would go to in order get their hands on a suitcase filled with $2 million worth of $100 bills. Javier Bardem gave a bone-chilling performance as the homicidal freak named Anton and absolutely deserved his nod for Best Supporting Actor in this year’s Academy Awards. I can’t stop thinking about what an evil, sadistic psychopath that guy he played was.

I walked out of Price Center a bit uneasy about the ending of the film, which I think has been debated by many critics and moviegoers before me. *SPOILER* When the sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) recounts his dream to his wife at the dining table, he talks about his father in the past who goes ahead of him to build a fire in the darkness. The sheriff says that if he followed him later, he knew he would still be there waiting by the fire for him. As I watched this scene unfold, I don’t know if I was imagining things but I swear that I heard footsteps coming slowly and steadily before all things faded to black and the credits ran. In my mind, I was thinking that Anton had come back to finish off the sheriff and maybe his wife as well. It was an abrupt and completely open-ended conclusion that supposedly compares faithfully with Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same title.

Everyone has their own interpretation of what must have happened next after the final scene, much like what the response was to the series finale of “The Sopranos.” In this case, I’m actually not bent on believing what I’m thinking. I know that whatever the author or directors meant by that scene turning out the way it did might not be how I think I see it. There was nothing definite about the ending; that’s for sure. The thought has crossed my mind that I may be rambling a bit right now, so in the spirit of Mr. McCarthy and film directors Ethan and Joel Coen i will let this entry stop on a dime (or Anton’s quarter) and fade to black…

Tags: cormac mccarthy, ending, javier bardem, no country for old men, price-center, spoiler, ucsd