… “And then I woke up.”

SPOILER ALERT **

About the ending of No Country for Old Men:

The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is that atypical, mostly-mainstream film that defies a Hollywood-style conventional ending. I’ve been asked several times what I make of that ending and while I realize that I’m not sure that I fully "get it," or that I’m completely meant to, I do have a few observations to make about it …

Similar in tone and content to Ingmar Bergman’s classic 1957 film The Seventh Seal, No Country for Old Men plays like a very contemporary American allegory on the omniscience of death—or more precisely, here: random violent death. In this sense Javier Bardem’s Chirugh is no more a flesh & blood character than that of the overt personification of Death in the Bergman movie. Both have a shared otherworldly relentlessness & indestructibility; both play cruel games of chance with their victims; they even have similar dialogue. And like Bergman’s hooded, black-draped figure, Chirugh dispenses death where ever he goes—not across the medieval landscape of plague-infested Europe, though, but through the bleak, desiccated barrens, motels and strip malls of 1980 Texas.

** Somewhat notoriously by now, the film ends very abruptly with Tommy Lee Jones’ Sheriff Bell relating an ostensibly comforting dream—a dream perhaps of the afterlife—in which he catches up to his dead father in a safe, secure spot—only to awaken from the falsity/optimism of that dream (it’s ambiguous) with the matter-of-fact words:
"...and then I woke up."

Cut to end credits.

There are a number of potential ways of reading this …

Morally, I think it may be a way of undercutting our conventional movie-going expectations—even desire for some sort of violent movie conclusion in which the "bad guy"—Chirugh, the figure of "Death"—gets his due. The Coens will not allow us this "pleasure" more typical of highly-dubious, videogame-style films like 300.

Allegorically, of course, "Death" never gets its due …. "death," "random violence," "evil," what have you, will always be with us. They never die.

Narratively, Sheriff Bell’s dream is a premonition of death—perhaps death at the hands of Chirugh.

Structurally, most of us expect a comforting conclusion to the movies that we watch—but the Coens—all credit to them—won’t give it to us. The film itself ends abruptly—just as one’s life might end through an act of random violence. In this sense, the ending of No Country for Old Men gives perfect form to the content of what is depicted within it. It’s as if Chirugh has suddenly terminated the lives of the Coens! Like the deaths of so many characters, the ending, in that sense, is just as "pointless."

Finally, a word on why I think the film has such contemporary relevance:

Sheriff Bell, who mostly operates on the periphery of the movie, makes several earlier direct references to the level of generalized violence depicted within the overall narrative of the film: especially to the drug trade across the Mexican border, which has brought with it a greater level of savagery than ever before. This is why the film is called No Country for Old Men. For weary old Bell it’s time to give up and retire. He’s not equipped—emotionally or otherwise to deal with this type of violence.

But I think this is also why the film resonates so deeply with audiences today because the level of violence we experience, however indirectly, through the movies, on the news, etc. seems more savage, more plentiful, more random than ever before: Iraq, suicide bombers, serial killers, school shootings, etc. Like Sheriff Bell, we are worn out by it.