[img]7|left|||no_popup[/img]An easy example of how multilayered “There Will Be Blood” is lies in the juxtaposition of Radiohead bandmember Jonny Greenwood’s score and the film’s imagery. Initially, the music comes on strong – so strong, in fact, that it almost pushes everything else out of conscious awareness. But the music, sometimes melodic, often nothing more than a menacing minimalist drone, eventually proves to be a vital and complementary element in the film’s gestalt. From a cinematic standpoint, the music could be stripped from the film, leaving us with a mostly innocuous portrait of difficult, not necessarily honest, lives in the ebb and flow of the dangerous and often ruthless oil business. Paul Thomas Anderson’s steady, unhurried pace is engaging in and of itself, giving us a chance to soak up gorgeously shot desert vistas, meticulously considered set design, stunning visual effects, and the gradual unfolding of the characters and plot. Factor in the music, however, and we have the kind of off-putting, revelatory contrast – like a bloodbath set to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy – that makes it clear how almost nothing is what it seems. The feeling of relentless dread created by Greenwood’s score becomes rather like the discovery of a severed ear in the green manicured lawn of a charming suburban field in a charming suburban neighbourhood.
As oilman Danny Plainview’s (Day-Lewis) story progresses, however, it also becomes clear that Greenwood’s score isn’t a maneuver to manipulate the audience with, but a straight line from the story’s heart. Layered characters and an almost allegorical quality to the story invite interpretations that can be described as epic or universal, all the while keeping away from the abstract to remain firmly rooted in the realistic. Easy kudos goes to Daniel Day-Lewis, of course, for a performance that refutes expectations of a reprise on his cartoonish, yet undeniably brawny, role of Bill Cutting in “Gangs of New York.” His Plainview is anything but plain; as the film’s structure emphasizes and Day-Lewis embodies magnificently (certainly one of the strongest performances of 2007), there are shadowy layers lurking beneath the pleasant surface layers. Plainview is a smooth operator, polite and cunning. Arguably, he’s even a loving father to the boy he adopted from an employee who died in an accident. Yet in a glance, or a choice, we cannot help but glimpse how deceptive Plainview’s character is. While it is somewhat of a cheat for us to get an outright confession – by Plainview himself, in a campfire conversation – as to what his character flaw is, the full force of a character at home in a Shakespearean tragedy nonetheless reaches hurricane proportions.
Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance isn’t the only force of nature in the film, however. Paul Dano, as fundamentalist Christian preacher and faith healer Eli Sunday, delivers a storm of his own in a performance that is less domineering than Day-Lewis’, but all the more chilling for its understatement. Both characters, who come to be antagonists in an oblique psychological Cold War, are cauldrons of impulses, ideas, deceptions and motivations. When they finally meet head on, the drama is akin to the collision of matter and antimatter.
A Strange Disconnect
And yet, there is a disconnect in the film’s resolution, perhaps even in the character of Plainview himself, although the source of that disconnect is rather elusive. It’s not that the ending, in itself, is wrong for the story. Far from it: The last confrontation is superbly and intensely dramatic, shocking in its emotional and physical violence, and suitably cryptic to mesmerize viewers rather than push them out as is the case with “No Country for Old Men.” Yet as appropriate as the ending is, that disconnect provokes a nagging feeling. A first thought might find the problem in the gap between the bulk of the film, which takes place in 1911, and the jump to 1927 for the conclusion. It’s very much like looking at the before-and-after shots of a weight loss program and skimping on the gym workouts and nutritional adjustments in between. But that doesn’t really explain the disconnect, since the seeds for the ending – for how the characters come to their eventual fates – are clearly planted throughout the film. If anything, the 16-year jump is an indirect source for the feeling that something is missing, that Plainview’s character is somehow incomplete however much he is plausibly enigmatic.
On further thought, the reason for feeling disconnected from the ending lies in the absence of inevitability. While everything that happens at the film’s end is consistent with what came before, and certainly powerful enough to linger long after the credits pass, it fails to feel like a necessary ending, like the story could not conclude in any other way without betraying itself. In other words, the ending is quite literally detached from the rest of the movie, almost like a post-script or an afterthought.
Despite admittedly odd and difficult-to-explain feelings in regards to the film’s concluding scenes, “There Will Be Blood” earns a place in the category of great films. Its ambiguity, the product of complex characterizations, is the tasty kind of food- for-thought that invites chewing and savouring, and dares audiences to solve the puzzle that is Daniel Plainview’s character by peeling away the layers to reach his core. The story’s surprising depth, manifested in even the smallest of subplots such as a surreptitious romance between Daniel’s son H.W. (Freasier) and Eli’s younger sister Mary (McAllister), astonishes. Above all, it is the kind of film that requires an effort and emotional investment to tease out the story’s themes and define their meaning. Because, in the end, although the story deals with the formative years of the oil business and the corrosive greed the oil industry has come to represent, there are layers beneath the history lesson ready to be unearthed.
Entertainment Value: ** (out of two)
Technical Quality: ** (out of two) Star Awarded!
“There Will Be Blood.” Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, based on the novel “Oil!” by Upton Sinclair. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O'Connor, Ciaran Hinds, and Dillon Freasier. 158 minutes. Rated R (for some violence).
