The Coen Brothers give to its frazzled protagonist Larry Gopnick a line a few times during the course of A Serious Man, "I didn't do anything!" that is more than just an homage to Franz Kafka - it's ripping him off basically. This is not to say Larry is quite in the same predicament of Joseph K. Then again, I wonder if Larry would prefer no explanation to the if-it-wasn't-for-bad-luck-I-would-have-no-luck status over the kinds he gets to his troubles. He has a divorce pending and his wife leaving with Sy Ableman (seriously, Sy Ableman!), he has a South Korean student who may be simultaneously bribing him and suing him for defamation, he has a brother who has a cyst/no job/gambling troubles, two kids who more or less are just typically dysfunctional teens (the boy on his way to be Bar Mitzvah and smoking enough dope to acknowledge more than once that it's 1967), and his sexual repression is practically taunted by the foxy Jewish woman next door who sunbathes nude. And what does God have to say about this? Oh, don't get him started on trips to the Rabbi - frankly, he'd have better luck with Anton Chigurh.
A Serious Man is a movie to take seriously as art, but at the same time the Coens aren't above pulling out their usual all-stops to make this a hilariously weird and awkward movie. Perhaps a better way to compare is that it's like if Curb Your Enthusiasm starred an average shmo who doesn't have quite the sense of humor of Larry David (and, perhaps, is even cursed by his bloodline via the opening scene in the movie... or maybe not, I'll get to that in a moment), and who keeps getting s*** on from all directions (not coincidentally perhaps Richard Kind appears in both show and movie). It's such a funny movie that I have to think back to Big Lebowski and O'Brother Where Art Thou to remember when I laughed so hard. Maybe its the predilection for Jewish jokes that sting so, or maybe its the originality with the storytelling. As far as a black-as-Jewish-death comedy, it works completely.
As for being a masterpiece of a film... I'm still not completely sure. Sometimes the Coens' movies are instant classics (No Country for Old Men, Blood Simple), and others take a little while to grow on a viewer (i.e. Miller's Crossing, even Big Lebowski was a grower and not a shower for me). A Serious Man may fall in the latter category; it's such a personal film, maybe more than anyone done before if only for the time and place and particulars of the characters in a Jewish-suburb of Minnesota, and its such an oddity in their catalog of work. Watching Larry on this existential odyssey of "WTF" nears Bergman proportions - there's even a scene where a character's death affects a woman in much the same way as the father Ekdahl's death in Fanny & Alexander - where religion is tested to the fullest and most harrowing of emotional schemes. Where is God when Larry needs him? Everywhere? Nowhere? Screw Larry, he didn't pay his (son's) Columbia Records account!
But for all that succeeds in A Serious Man, such as a completely masterful sequence (a contender for my single favorite sequence of any movie this year) where a Rabbi describes a harrowing and pointless and uproarious story of a dentist and a Goy's teeth, or when Larry's son is stoned out of his mind when reading the Torah at his Bar Mitzvah (a first in cinema history, combining marijuana, Roger Deakins' use of a lens-baby, and Hebrew), and its creative characterizations and shocking nightmare scenes, it's an unsettling film, and not always in the best ways. It's a film that, as one could argue in their past films, is at war with if not the audience directly then with audience expectations. We might expect A Serious Man to just be about this man's downward spiral in his life, but what then to make of that (cool) opening scene all in Yiddish and (admitted by Joel Coen) to not really have a whole lot to do directly with the rest of the movie, or, for that matter, the end of the movie which just... ends.
As far as 'f***-you's' to audiences go, it certainly is funny and startling in comparison with No Country for Old Men (almost like the Coens are saying 'yeah, knock this one this time, we *dare* you!), and if I get an f-you from filmmakers I'm glad it comes from them. But... you will either need more than a viewing for it to sink in, or you'll curse the day you decided to walk in the theater or rent it. Not much of a middle ground. Then again, I wouldn't want it any other way in this case. And hey, it's got Jefferson Airplane quoted by a Yoda-Rabbi, that scores points right there! 9.5/10
A Serious Man is a movie to take seriously as art, but at the same time the Coens aren't above pulling out their usual all-stops to make this a hilariously weird and awkward movie. Perhaps a better way to compare is that it's like if Curb Your Enthusiasm starred an average shmo who doesn't have quite the sense of humor of Larry David (and, perhaps, is even cursed by his bloodline via the opening scene in the movie... or maybe not, I'll get to that in a moment), and who keeps getting s*** on from all directions (not coincidentally perhaps Richard Kind appears in both show and movie). It's such a funny movie that I have to think back to Big Lebowski and O'Brother Where Art Thou to remember when I laughed so hard. Maybe its the predilection for Jewish jokes that sting so, or maybe its the originality with the storytelling. As far as a black-as-Jewish-death comedy, it works completely.
As for being a masterpiece of a film... I'm still not completely sure. Sometimes the Coens' movies are instant classics (No Country for Old Men, Blood Simple), and others take a little while to grow on a viewer (i.e. Miller's Crossing, even Big Lebowski was a grower and not a shower for me). A Serious Man may fall in the latter category; it's such a personal film, maybe more than anyone done before if only for the time and place and particulars of the characters in a Jewish-suburb of Minnesota, and its such an oddity in their catalog of work. Watching Larry on this existential odyssey of "WTF" nears Bergman proportions - there's even a scene where a character's death affects a woman in much the same way as the father Ekdahl's death in Fanny & Alexander - where religion is tested to the fullest and most harrowing of emotional schemes. Where is God when Larry needs him? Everywhere? Nowhere? Screw Larry, he didn't pay his (son's) Columbia Records account!
But for all that succeeds in A Serious Man, such as a completely masterful sequence (a contender for my single favorite sequence of any movie this year) where a Rabbi describes a harrowing and pointless and uproarious story of a dentist and a Goy's teeth, or when Larry's son is stoned out of his mind when reading the Torah at his Bar Mitzvah (a first in cinema history, combining marijuana, Roger Deakins' use of a lens-baby, and Hebrew), and its creative characterizations and shocking nightmare scenes, it's an unsettling film, and not always in the best ways. It's a film that, as one could argue in their past films, is at war with if not the audience directly then with audience expectations. We might expect A Serious Man to just be about this man's downward spiral in his life, but what then to make of that (cool) opening scene all in Yiddish and (admitted by Joel Coen) to not really have a whole lot to do directly with the rest of the movie, or, for that matter, the end of the movie which just... ends.
As far as 'f***-you's' to audiences go, it certainly is funny and startling in comparison with No Country for Old Men (almost like the Coens are saying 'yeah, knock this one this time, we *dare* you!), and if I get an f-you from filmmakers I'm glad it comes from them. But... you will either need more than a viewing for it to sink in, or you'll curse the day you decided to walk in the theater or rent it. Not much of a middle ground. Then again, I wouldn't want it any other way in this case. And hey, it's got Jefferson Airplane quoted by a Yoda-Rabbi, that scores points right there! 9.5/10