There Will Be Blood (2007) - Hagfilms Honest Reviews

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• published: 05 Jul 2011
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Set on the Californian oil fields at the dawn of the twentieth century, There Will Be Blood, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, is a powerful and compelling movie, with some electrifying performances, some beautiful postcard perfect shots, and a squalid tension which easily draws us into the story. It follows prospector Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day Lewis in another astounding role, and marking his second win at the Oscars. With his supposed son, HW, Plainview takes his fledgling mining company on the road, trying to tap into the assets beneath the landscape. He is approached by a young man by the name of Paul Sunday (played by Paul Dano), who informs him of his fathers land and how he has a suspicion that there is a large oil deposit beneath it. He takes payment for the information and Plainview subsequently buys up the farm at a lowly sum, much to the anger of the other son Eli (also played by Paul Dano). He is angered by his fathers stupidity in handing over his land for such a poor imbursement, and wanted to hold out for a larger amount to upgrade his Church. And so the rivalry begin, where oil and religion, false promises of prosperity are yielded as weapons of manipulation and extortion. The two men fight for pride, respect, ambition, but ultimately for money. They both in turn hide beneath goodwill and family values, each aware that one will not survive without the other, people need faith and are in want of wealth. The wealth and education as promised by Plainview, or the wealth of God as offered by Eli is used for their own gain and occasionally tactfully played against each other. Mans greed and lust for power and control over the majority has always remained the same, oil and religion make the perfect leverage. Therefore, the films title is a clever one, a prediction of hindsight, not just predicting the blood between the two main characters, but the blood that will flow in endless battles and wars to come. The movie has been duly noted as a masterpiece, not only for its distinctive visual composition from its writer/director Anderson, and the cinematography of frequent collaborator Robert Elswit, but also the story's depth gave the actors a solid platform for some compelling, and repellent performances. Characters we neither liked, or trusted. Dano is slimy and abhorrent as the preacher Eli. Everything from his voice and stance is creepy, and when he gets into the heat of one of his sermons, it's an experience very similar to chewing nettles. On initial viewing, I questioned whether he really had a brother to start with, or whether it was Eli himself who first approached Plainview, with plans of getting rich quick and expanding his church. This is left for us to figure out, and just one example of the story asking us to draw our own conclusions. Lewis plays Plainview as a hardened man, with one of the best accents in film, a jovial voice that resonates with authority and finality. As always his volatile performance leaves no room for doubt as we see his sanity, or his humanity, deteriorate before our eyes, but then he never really lets us completely into his role, he plays it guarded like a politician in his disclosure of any personal history. We only begin to build a picture of his past when a stranger arrives alleging to be his brother. His career, built up on a trustworthiness he helped to promote as a father and son business, is immediately in doubt to us as we know that the boy is not his. We already know that the child was orphaned, yet we are uncertain as whether he is just using the boy or if he has any real feelings of love towards him? He rescues the boy, but was he really rescuing his career, aware that the family man is a commodity in that it generates trust in those who he stands to swindle. Again we are left to pass our own judgement. It seems to be that when the son loses his hearing Plainview begins to have considered himself as incapable for protecting and caring for even just one person, and then his bitterness, his passion for wealth and his hatred for man begins to show through his façade. The movies soundtrack, by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood is an awesome and atmospheric accomplishment, both unnatural and disturbing. It becomes abstract, and inhuman with its wheezy strings, like the dying breath from a sand filled lung. The music truly complimented the human anguish in the story and with the inclusion of a mechanical percussion, really conjured up images of machinery, driving us through the movie like an unstoppable locomotive. Its not often that the music really strikes you in movies, but this soundtrack helped to put the finishing polish to a work of art.