Blood Simple (coen Brothers)

Blood Simple

I was once taught about Occam’s Razor, which states that the most direct answer to a question is the best. Of course, this may work in physical situations, considering your resources. But when you are in the mental and emotional realm, you can see that it’s a high-strung life prone to indecision and impulse that can damage a lot of people and those around you.

Blood Simple is taking this to its extreme. No one steps outside their misdeeds and projects their biggest fears and conscience on others. Having never seen the film before and been fortunate enough never to have been told the story, it’s a slightly convoluted slice of life of an American underbelly with a fantastic sheriff fat man in M emmet Walsh’s effective sheriff Fatman of a detective.

The film starts simple enough: a man is taunted about being occluded, and I use that Shakespearean term, deliverable. It’s a man who’s a figure of fun like Malvolio, and the whole film plays out like a comedy of 12th Night proportions. However, 12th Night didn’t have Edward Allen Poe-style degradation and isolation, nor did it have the shaky cam craze of the Ramville wood board camera.

As the story plays out with love and Francis coming more and more to the fore, I admit it took a lot of work to follow the plot regarding motivation. One minute, I think they’re all in on it, then I realise they’re all out for themselves, and then I realise it’s just fear for oneself, not greed. It’s a kinetic pace of motivation placed within a languid pace of location.

The coins bring a pretty charm in sharp casting; this helps immeasurably. I could stare at anyone’s face for ages on the big screen in this film. It’s not like there’s a single likeable person as such throughout the film; even the love interest has to wonder if she’s looking for money or a simple new life.

But if anything is lacking, it is in Abbey. For most of it, she is as much an object as a ten-grand payout in the film. It’s the 1980s, and men in swinging style and rustic charm, febrile desperation is what holds court throughout the film. 

It’s a strong film with low goals and lower ethics. It’s A gritty rural noir, and it’s something right out of the 50’s 

But it obeys the Hays code, and you never lose some need to see a comeuppance.

It’s a great little film, but it needs your full attention. As such, avoid the homestream experience and do what you can to ensure you see it with the attention a cinema brings to the film.