Inside Llewyn Davis

“Where’s its scrotum?” Joel and Ethan Coen attempt to penetrate the inner life of another one their down downtrodden heroes and succeed at least as well as they did in the Kafkaesque Barton Fink (which also featured an artistic setting, the futile efforts of an artist and the thematisation of the relationship between art and commerce) or in the apocalyptic A Serious Man (the unfortunate feeling that the protagonist “owes” his misfortune to a higher power). The film also recalls the Homeric comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou? with its exploration of the roots of American pop music and the Coens’ revived collaboration with music producer T Bone Burnett. ___ It thus isn’t true that Inside Llewyn Davis would be a lesser “Coen-ian” film. At most, it is more perceptive with respect to its protagonist. And rightly so. In comparison with the characters in the above-mentioned films, Llewyn is both more active and more talented, due to which he is of course viewed with greater understanding and less cynical condescension, though the brothers leave it to us to judge whether Llewyn’s unassertiveness is a sign of defeatism or merely an unwillingness to sell out. ___ Llewyn’s multi-day struggle, during which he is mostly kept company only by an orange tomcat, begins with a slammed door and continues with the loss of his money, cheery prospects and even his own identity (when he loses not only his last few dollars, but also his ID). Though his agent likes people, this is manifested in his frequent attendance of funerals rather than in intensively seeking out work for his client. Conversely, the hatred that Llewyn’s ex-girlfriend holds for him is intense (Carey Mulligan again tries through most of the film to perform in the same acting mode, which this time is hysterical), as she is shocked by the protagonist’s ignorant attitude toward his own and others’ past and future. ___ It’s true that Llewyn doesn’t do much planning, he’s not strong-willed and he more or less freely lets the world pass him by. Perhaps because of his indiscipline and inability to take life firmly in his hands and assert his interests, he repeatedly finds himself in similarly unenviable situations, ending his ill-fated journey where it began. We can only wonder whether the film begins with a flashforward or ends with a flashback, whether the epilogue is supposed to be a statement on Llewyn’s incorrigibility or something else entirely. ___ Though he would perhaps want to, Llewyn Davis does not decide his own fate. Fate, perhaps embodied in a cat with a very meaningful name, rather calls the shots for him. With its absurdist hopelessness, the film is reminiscent of another story of a man who didn’t know what to do with a cat, Juráček’s A Character in Need of Support. The tone of the spiralling narrative is set immediately by the first of the soundtrack’s numerous balladic songs, in which Llewyn sings about how he has travelled around the world and wouldn’t mind if he died. It’s as if his acceptance of his assigned role as a supporting character is manifested in his choice of songs. It is characteristic of his life story that while Bob Dylan is onstage getting ready to enchant the audience, Llewyn is being beaten by a stranger in a back alley (the recurring image of Llewyn walking alone is an apt variation on the cover art of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, in which we see a happy pair of lovers). __ But to what extent is Llewyn’s passivity voluntary and to what extent does it stem from the fact that others accept (or reject) him. Most of the characters either cannot remember his name (the devilish John Goodman as a jazzman with an outsized ego) or – as if he did not exist in and of himself – try to assign him to someone else, such as to the infirm father who responds to his son’s musical output with a display of incontinence and thus paradoxically shows himself to be a more receptive listener than music producer Bud Grossman. ___ The reason for Llewyn’s unpopularity and the fact that he doesn’t fit into any environment may be his stubborn inflexibility, which prevents him from singing other people’s songs more often, for example. But is rejection by the outside world too high a price for maintaining his own authenticity? Though music is the most natural form of self-expression for him and he exhibits a certain self-assuredness only when he is playing, does Llewyn really know what his authentic self looks like? Or does confronting it make him uneasy, just like the knowledge that somewhere in Akron his child is toddling and babbling? He thought he had resolved the issue of the child, but she comes back like a boomerang, just as the cat and the thought of Mike’s suicide disappear and return. The feeling of loss never subsides. Instead, like a doppelgänger, it accompanies the protagonist everywhere he goes. ___ With cool visuals and settings such as narrow hallways with double doors at the end (of which Llewyn always naturally chooses the worse one), the Coens succeed in brilliantly expressing the anxiety of a world that is constantly pushing us to make fundamental decisions. Impactful editing and the equally apt use of interludes (the endless journey to Chicago), original swearing (“King Midas’s idiot brother”), bizarre characters (the man on the subway, the elevator operator) and even more bizarre names (Howard Greenfung) turn individual scenes into brilliantly timed gags. Bolstered by appropriately chosen songs, the melancholic atmosphere of failure is the main unifying element of the narrative. The film lacks a traditional plot structure with multiple dramatic acts and a catharsis at the end. The Coens do not try to combine the individual picaresque incidents into a unified narrative flow. The film is a drama without a third act, indicating – among other things – that Llewyn is the hero of a story taking place against the backdrop of bigger stories (in the spirit of Life of Brian). After the exposition and initial complication, there are just more and more complications. ___ The universal questions that the Coens examine this time involve the (in)voluntariness of choice due to one’s own convictions and the demands of the public. Instead of simple answers, they offer a wonderfully melancholic comedy that will resonate in my head for a long time to come. 90% (02/19/2014) (less) (more)