Inside Llewyn Davis

                                                                          

When it comes to American cinema there is no one more exceptionally qualified than the Coen Brothers. Nobody has built such a strong body of work that depicts America for all its idiosyncrasies, both its strengths and its faults. Ever since day one, through ‘Blood Simple’, ‘Raising Arizona’, ‘Fargo’ ‘No Country for Old Men’, ‘Burn After Reading’, the list goes on, the Coen Brothers have covered every square inch of such a vast country, from New York to Brainerd. Their films and characters are as varied and at times crazy as the land itself, their cinematic language can range from laugh out loud comedy to devastating heartfelt drama often in the same movie, often in the same scene. The Coen Brothers are American masters, true visionaries of modern cinema, and producing hit after hit, free of the studio system to create whatever wild, lurid, stark story they wish, on their terms, always.

Then we come to ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ the brothers first film in four years, that takes a stab at the folkloric mythology of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960s. When most people think of this time period they think of Bob Dylan, they think of vibrant colourful characters, a time of change and frenzied attitudes, changing with the wind, people for the first time ever feeling liberated and truly alive, change happening all around the world, with Greenwich Village at its centre, folk music itself the proverbial beating heart. However the tone of the brother’s Greenwich Village is a truly sombre one, a state of purgatory wistfully dismal and arid, baron of life and joy, depressed and aching with the sadness of all our lives. This is after all 1961 not 1963, and that makes all the difference, for as change is yet to come, as Dylan and The Beatles have not yet invaded the airwaves and set curiosity throughout the young minds of the American youth, leaving the sentiment that change is inevitable and that ‘I’ have a monumental part to play, therefore 1961 is purgatory for all, waiting aching hoping for something, anything but this.

Like most Coen Brothers films ‘Llewyn Davis’ is a film of stark simplicities, simple brush strokes, saying more with body language than words, thriving off of the emotion of its players rather than their words. ‘Llewyn Davis’ does not seek to depict its period setting matter-of-factly; it does not really seek to tell a story at all. It captures a sentiment of a time and place, the atmosphere of New York in 1961, the spirit of all those who were suffering and struggling amidst the long cold winters, hoping for change in their own sad lives, when subconsciously unbeknownst to all, aching for a more significant change, one that would shake of the post war blues that still anchored every ones hearts so low, and levitate us into more optimistic and prosperous times. All that would come, and in the not too distant future, but for now, purgatory lives on.

The story of ‘Llewyn Davis’ is a simple one; a week in the life of a struggling musician. That is it, and it never gets much more complicated. The film is almost a dreamscape, a depiction of a sentiment, of a man’s soul told through visual metaphor and stark composition. Llewyn, a man who has clearly struggled his whole life, full of passion and creativity, ambitious and desperate, searching and longing for all that he desires, is a poor soul who can simply never catch a break. From the death of his old partner, a tragedy that still hangs heavy on his shoulders, to the news that his friend Jean is pregnant and wants an abortion, made worse by the fact that his old girlfriend didn’t really have an abortion so now he is a father, the proposed responsibility he must now adhere, out there somewhere in America. Personified by a stray cat, Llewyn is the embodiment of that feline survivor, at odds with its unforgiving environment but making do with its lot, getting by at best. When in Chicago, advised by Mr Grossman, a talent agent, to reteam with his old partner, Llewyn acknowledges that as good advice, maybe he would be better off joining him on the other side.

The Coen Brothers are capable of conjuring so many different emotions all at once, like conductors they make you laugh when they call for it, they make you cry in one swift motion, they are capable of bringing forth all the manor of emotions that we as human beings experience on a daily basis. ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ is such an incredible film as it does exactly that with so little words and actions, it depicts true loneliness and sadness, the reality of struggling against all odds and the relativity of human suffering. Winter 1961 in New York was a hard time for everyone in need of hope and inspiration, the Coen Brothers sought not to tell a story of the spirit of change and revolution that swept America in the 1960s, rejuvenating the people and bringing forth change that would affect the world forever, they sought instead to depict the spirit of America just before that, it’s always darkest before the dawn and ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ delivers melancholic beauty of the darkest shade, when we are but ready to give up, unknowing that change is just around the corner.