There Will be Blood

A genius meets a genius to produce a genius in filmmaking. It’s quite rare to see such a satisfying and exhilarating narrative brought to screen with such breathtaking execution. Often, even in the presence of the first two aforementioned geniuses (director and actor), the execution fails to produce as stunning an effort as Paul Thomas Anderson’s There will be blood. But both the director and actor, Daniel Day Lewis (who I have no hesitation in calling THE greatest of our generation) more than justify their stellar records and delve deep into the human condition, albeit with a bleak view of things. However, nowhere did I feel left behind in the indulgence of the storyteller as Anderson keeps me hooked in the narrative throughout. DDL is at his best playing off the towering ambition of the director, which, even with my dismal knowledge of film making and acting, presumably took a heavy toll on the terrific actor. Try telling him acting is no serious business!

The technical aspects of this magnum opus is certainly going to be a stuff of film schools. However, I will try to elucidate what minimal layers I could perceive in this narrative of daring depth. The use of sound stuck out so much during my viewing of the film. The complete background silence in the opening minutes of Daniel’s introduction to the story heightens the claustrophobia and terrifying solitude associated with the job of pit mining. This also sets the tone of the character of Daniel, as we see the beginnings of what is most important for him, his twisted love for material wealth that transfers seamlessly to oil. Everything around him seems to fall into three categories: Means to get oil, hurdles in getting oil and unimportant people. However, in the middle act of the movie, the character of Henry provides a different light into Daniel’s psyche, which for the first time shows signs of tortured longing and a presence of a gaping void, that all the oil cannot seemingly fill. But the resolution of this arc sees Daniel ultimately returning to his first love. What I loved about this part was how PTA avoided the oft repeated tropes of stories of vicious ambitions (criminal or otherwise) that all seemingly follow a nice smooth bell curve, with a nice visible high point in the movie, followed by the inevitable slide towards downfall or death. The viewers become subconsciously trained to predict when a downward slide has begun and it all becomes a question of when and how, giving us little time to ponder on the why and empathize. 

Anderson, here amazingly manages to avoid all these cliches, tropes and predictabilities by focusing on the character against the backdrop of the oil boom. The business, actually never really sees a slump and keeps getting more and more into the background as Daniel’s dysfunctional relations with everyone around him seem to come into the foreground. And credit to Anderson for his screenplay, this treatment has not been done in a predictable “He gets colder as he gets richer” manner. In fact, Daniel’s character unfolds like a suspense story where the idiosyncrasies become the major drivers and the seemingly dominant traits vanish into the background. DDL complements this approach perfectly (not using this as hyperbole) with verbal and non verbal subtle twitches and switches. I am yet to see such a masterclass of non verbal acting by even the most accomplished actors. The “milkshake” dialogue has gained much traction in popular media, but in that scene, watch him gently push Eli on the shoulders and tell him: “It was Paul, he’s the smart one.” Kudos to Paul Dano as well for holding his own impressively in one of the finest scenes performed by the finest actor, orchestrated by a genius behind the camera.

I know in a review of a film (if one can call this that), some shortcomings are to be noted. But this is my unapologetic love letter to the film and whatever the technical and writing flaws there may be in the film’s overall demeanour, they just make this effort by PTA more human. Although bleak in its outlook and also somewhat ominous foreshadowing of capitalist rot, this remains at its heart a story about a human, not about a business nor a tirade against any particular ideology. Even the religious symbolisms are meant to serve character development and not an end in themselves. 

So, for any poor sod reading this mess of a review, I recommend watching this movie, for its extraordinary insight into the human condition. If after an initial viewing, maybe if you feel a bit melancholic about us, perhaps watch Miyazaki’s work as an antidote/companion of sorts. 

P.S. The use of PTA and DDL might be a sensory hazard to some, even to me sometimes!