Anton Chigurh and the Principle of FateĬhigurh’s disposition within the movie favors a determinist outlook on life. The boy accepted his fate, but at what cost? This small anecdote opens up the underlying philosophical paradox within the movie and serves as a premise for the film’s antagonist, Anton Chigurh. His last words before being sent to the electric chair were that ‘he knew he was going to hell’, welcoming his eternal damnation. When asked whether it was a crime of passion, the boy says ‘there wasn’t any passion to it’ and that ‘he’d been planning to kill someone for as long as he can remember’. The film opens with Sheriff Tom Bell’s monologue over a backdrop of a desert landscape in Texas the Sheriff describes an encounter he had with a boy that murdered a young girl in cold blood. Both of these characters represent the dichotomy of predestination and human agency. The linear plot is based on a cat-and-mouse game between Moss and Chigurh in a pursuit for stolen drug money that Bell attempts to fruitlessly intercept.

There are some things that we can change and other things that we have to accept, but to what extent do we have agency over divine decree? The film centers around three main characters: Llewelyn Moss, Sheriff Tom Bell, and Anton Chigurh. No Country for Old Men is a film which encapsulates the age-old question philosophers have pondered over for centuries: how much responsibility do we have over our destiny? Rather than answer the question, the film explores the dichotomy between free will and determinism. If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?

*Disclaimer: this is a film analysis and contains spoilers*Ĭhigurh: Let me ask you something. An Exploration into Qadr and the Limits of Human Agency

No country for old men book