INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (2013)

Two of the most poignant moments of Inside Llewyn Davis, which in microcosm, contain the essence of the film occur toward its very end. The first is when, on returning back to New York from Chicago, Llewyn, while driving, hits an animal in the middle of the night, barely retains control of the vehicle, gets down to check, finds blood on the front rail, and sees through the thick of snow, a silhouette of what looks like a limping animal disappear in the woods. The second occurs when towards the end, walking on his way to the Gaslight Cafe, he sees a movie poster outside a theatre, Disney’s ‘The Incredible Journey’ with a close-up on the film’s tagline, “nothing could stop them — only instinct to guide them across 200 perilous miles of Canadian wilderness”. It is a chilling moment that the directors inserted after Llewyn’s own harrowing journey, none of which was incredible but extremely pathetic, even though the film itself was released in 1963, while Llewyn’s story is set in 1961.

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS is terribly, incredibly sad. It is sad not because Llewyn doesn’t make it as a musician, because he totally would. It is sad because of the wrong things that happen, one after another, without a break. When he gets out of the car to look for the injured animal, all he sees from a distance is a vague silhouette of something that looks like a limping animal disappear into the woods. He wants to help it, the animal needs help too, but there is no way to communicate, none to reach out. In this life, the animal will suffer. Perhaps if he sang the song he sang to his father, to Bud Grossman, maybe he would see more money in it. Perhaps, if he had a good night’s rest, a refreshing meal, a warm soup, he’d be more ‘green’ for the producer. But perhaps none of those things matter, and he would be rejected all the same, even with those things.

There is an inevitability, a dooming sort of atmosphere that lingers throughout the film. Toward the end, we see the three kinds of musicians that exist: ones who ‘make it’ big, ones who quit, and ones like Llewyn, victims of their own state, stuck to play music in godforsaken bars for petty change. We’re forced to ask, what exactly differentiates the three that they landed their respective fates? We know Llewyn is a genuine, gifted musician and had no reason whatsoever to fail. What does Bob Dylan have that he lacks? The answer very well may be nothing. The hardest pill this movie offers us to swallow is that there is nothing wrong with Llewyn, that he isn’t more or less commercial or artistic than any of the others. What he has is bad luck, and that can be anyone’s death knell. But the movie assures us that Llewyn will be alright, and whatever he has been through, he has been through it before and come out alright. His life moves in circles, and when he is given an opportunity to exit that circle, he refuses.

--Written as AmoralKritik for AmoralHighorse