It's needless to say that i've been extremely excited to watch this film for a long time. Life long Coen Brothers fan with an undying passion for music, especially folk, i just couldn't wait. Soooo, i deliberately throw myself out of my usual 'Vue Cinema in Eastleigh' comfort zone and ventured to Harbour Lights Picture House. After walking in the rain for about 30 minutes (good ol' England) my eagerness for the film ahead just wouldn't shift, which of course is breaking my number one rule... Never ever have high hopes before watching a film for fear of being disappointed... however, I'm happy to announce that i most definitely wasn't, it was fantastic.
The opening scene was quite simply captivating. A wonderful close up shot of Llewyn (played by Oscar Issac) singing 'Hang Me, Oh Hang Me' at the Gaslight Cafe. With the brilliant use of dark greens and browns filling the shot to give it a lovely visual look of 60's patina, all accompanying the amazing live sound of Llewyn singing and playing the guitar, which is it's own right was terrific, was just simply lovely.
The plot was the usual Coen brothers masterpiece of intertwining ideas and recurring themes that eventually come to a possibly too abrupt ending that leaves a audience member feeling slightly confused, but if you're me, feeling completely satisfied in the idea that the plot was so undeniably finished, that it felt somewhat unfinished, but almost taking comfort in the idea that the plot lives and continues in my own mind - and this film was exactly that. The Coen brothers successful tap into the idea of a film and reply and repeat every angle they can until the plot is just so fixated in your head, you're not even 100% what happened. If there was any conceivable plot in the entire film, it would have been the cat, having said that, the journey of the cat is so wonderfully ambiguous that you don't find out it's name until the very end of the film. A name that perfectly sums up the metaphor of the cat and links very nicely to the Coen's 'O Brother Where Art Thou'.
I was a very very big fan of this film and i thoroughly enjoyed it, however, i can completely see why others wouldn't enjoy it as much. After watching it, my boyfriend's first reaction was "Well that was... umm... yeah!... explain it to me" - and was many of the audiences reactions as we left the Picture House. However, in my humble opinion, it was just classic Coen Brothers and was truely enjoyable to watch.
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