A Serious Man
Yet another Coen flick. Sorry, they’re just too productive and too good.
Although I believe A Serious Man (2009) is not a very typical Coen movie. And yet it is. The atmosphere totally fits their oeuvre; the characters are right and somewhat outlandish; the situational humor is recognizable. But the movie in general is more complex and in fact a bit peculiar.
It’s about a Jew community, 60’s, somewhere in America. They have their habits, and these mix and collide with non Jewish society.
Main character, Larry, physics professor, and kind of an unlucky guy. During the movie, shit happens, multiple times. They try to bribe him and threat him along, his wife wants a divorce, his neighbor tries to steal part of his lawn; and many more of this. Is he paying for the sins of his ancestors (Jewish tradition, and the opening scene aludes to it) or just unlucky, we don’t know.
Until we look further. What’s happening to Larry during the movie is threat. Nothing really happens, but a lot of bad things could happen. They threaten him, destabilize him. But things are only going bad for real, after he moves first. After he decided to sin himself. A situation he ends up in the first place, responding to these previous threats.
Once you realize this, the movie becomes different. In the first place because it’s the end of it, but then you start to post rationalize it and things start to make sense. I’m telling it here, because I believe this knowledge makes it a better movie.
One last remark. Larry teaches his class about Schrodinger’s cat. The funny thing is, this applies to the movie as well, to Larry. By trying to understand what’s going on, he becomes part of the reality and this alone alters the result. The cat is the key to the movie!
