No Country For Old Men Ending

I actually really liked the ending because it subverts the expectations of the viewer in a way that didn't feel out of place with the rest of the film. Each of the characters go through failure at the end, transgressing the stoic and dominant roles they take throughout the film. More specifically, each of their characters goes through failures that break down their personalities. For example, throughout the film, Chigurh is depicted as a calm, methodical killers: each of his crimes are well thought out and intricate enough to allow him getting away with it. He also has no remorse for his killings, presenting him as a character who is not human and stops the audience from empathising with him. However this archetype is flipped when he goes to murder Carla Jean. You would think that Chigurh would just kill her, but Carla Jean states how "the coin doesn't have a say" and shows how Chigurh is the only one who does. The close up on Chigurh's face (he has tears running down his face) shows his emotions and a more human response to killing someone. This response is a surprise to the audience because we have spent the entirety of the movie being inhumane and ruthless in his killings, and now is struggling to kill one person. 

This change is furthermore subverted in the scene after when we see him leave the house. It is left ambiguous whether or not Chigurh killed Carla Jean. More specifically each of the killings in the film are clearly shown to the audience: they are gory and straight forward. Now it has been left to the audience to decide whether or not he killed her, it symbolises Chigurh's change into a more morally grey character and, by proxy, more empathetic if he let Carla Jean live. His change reaches its end in his final scene in the car. He is shown to be not paying attention to the road and gets into a car crash, which causes his bone to come out of his arm.  This scene symbolises his change because he is no longer as methodical strategist: the fact he had thought out killings so well to allow him to escape but now he couldn't even see a car coming towards him displays how he has fallen from grace. This also maybe depicting how what Carla Jean said to him caused him to not pay attention, highlighting the effect it had on him

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