Jerry Lundegaard’s emasculation and spiral into financial oblivion has already begun, a man who believes his future is contained in a briefcase full of salvation, but the malignant roots of this devotion corrupt the soul. The Coen Brother’s dark humor is prevalent from the opening credits as they proclaim this story “based upon true events”: they even proclaim that the details are as faithful as possible in deference to the dead. This plot device actually works quite well to restrain their snarky humor and capitulate to a formal narrative structure, which drives the film through the tempest of brutality and violence. The Coen Brothers often fall victim to their own burlesque, portraying caricatures instead of people, disguising empathy with a mask of parody. But the fine performance from William H. Macy and Frances McDormand involve the audience in this violent drama and parallels the absurdly inept and sadistic criminals.
The film begins to lean towards slapstick until the first gruesome murder scene that shocks the audience in its casual cruelty: the point-blank murder of a State Trooper. We suddenly realize that the stakes have been raised, and the narrative destination is unknown. Then two innocent teenagers stumble upon the crime scene and we feel the adrenaline rush of panic and hope for their escape as they race down the slick lonely highway, until their taillights betray their fate. The callowness of their breathless murders resonates in our hearts. For once, the Coen brothers have captured true drama that echoes nihilism, the whisper of the void, and there’s nothing funny about it.
DP Roger Deakin’s work is brilliant, often utilizing high angles and vague, ghost-like forms haunting whiteout conditions, and he bookends the film with a duel visual construction. The story begins with headlights cutting through the thick snow until a car appears towing a trailer, which is Jerry Lundegaard setting the plot in motion. The tale ends with Sheriff Marge Gunderson in a similar composition, as emergency vehicles appear behind her Prowler, the defendant detained in the back seat. Carter Burwell’s elegiacal score is a perfect complement to Deakin’s imagery, evoking the sadness of the loss of moral values yet still infuses the story with a motif of hope.
The police procedural is surprisingly realistic which elevates the fiction’s credibility, and the woodchipper ending is both funny and grotesque: which best describes the Coen’s cinematic form. McDormand as the pregnant Brainerd Police Chief is believable, contrasting her personal life with her professional worldview. In the coda, as she snuggles in bed with her husband whose Mallard gets the three-cent stamp, the bodies of both victims and defendants now in repose, Marge hasn’t lost her faith in human nature. And another life will be introduced to this savage world in two more months.
Final Grade: (A+)
