No Country for Old Men, Introduction Analysis

No Country for Old Men is a 2007 American crime-thriller, set in the 1980's of West Texas. No Country for Old Men starts with near a dozen establishing shots, these set the location of the film as a desolate, lawless land. There is none, or at most very little movement in any of these shots, this shows how quiet it is in this place, an unusual setting for a Thriller film. There is a voice-over throughout all of this, Ed Tom Bell, the regions sheriff, talking of the rise in crime in the area.



It then introduces the villain of the story, Anton Chigurh, a hitman set to recover a large sum of money from a failed drug exchange. He's being arrested and put in the deputy's car, along with the strange piece of equipment he uses, a bolt-pistol, used for stunning cattle before slaughter. At this stage, we haven't seen Chigurhs face, it is obscured by lighting, or we see him from behind. This keeps his identity a mystery to use, we don't know who he is, where he came from or what he has done to be arrested.The car drives away with a rising pan of the landscape, to show us how desolate the place is. It also shows how empty the place is, and how difficult it would be to find someone out there.
There is a mid-shot of the deputy talking to Bell on the phone, with Chigurh walking up behind him, his face blurred out or not in the shot. We can see him do this, but the deputy doesn't, it builds tension as he slowly approaches the un-aware deputy, before grabbing him with the handcuffs around his wrists and pulling him to the floor.There is then an unusual birds-eye view shot of Chigurh strangling the deputy, we can see Chigurh for the first time, and his emotionless face as he kills the deputy, suggesting that this isn't the first time he has been in this situation. A close-up of Chigurhs face shows that he has no remorse in killing this man, half of his face is blackout of in shadow.
It then cuts to him washing his wrists in a sink to clean the blood off, and shows us the floor where the deputy kicked during the struggle, leaving marks, these show the aftermath of the brutal event. Chigurh, unaffected, has bandaged his wrists and calmly collects his bolt-pistol and gas canister before leaving in the cop car, completely calm about killing the deputy. It shows us who he is as a character, a cold-blooded killer.