Blood Simple (4½ Stars)

For me "Blood Simple" is a watershed. I regard people who know the film and who directed it as film fans, whether or not they like the film. Anyone who's never seen it or has no idea who directed it is a non-film fan, or whatever the opposite of film fan is. Everyone likes films, but there's an elite who take films seriously, rather than just letting the random films on television wash over them.

"Blood Simple" was made in 1984, the first film directed by the Cohen brothers. When it was first released it went unnoticed and barely made a profit at the box office, but as time went by both critics and fans started to wake up to it. That was partly because later films by the Cohen brothers, such as "Fargo", were box office successes, but I'd say the main reason is that "Blood Simple" was so good in its own right.

In their very first film the Cohen brothers revealed a theme which would be repeated in almost all of their future works: existentialist chaos. Rather than a logical progression from one scene to another, random occurrences happen which lead to misunderstandings among the characters, just like in the real world. Throughout "Blood Simple" people are being accused of doing things that someone else did. At the end of the film a woman shoots someone she thinks is her husband, not knowing that her husband is already dead and she's actually shooting a complete stranger.

A whole philosophical thesis could be written about the six-barrel revolver with three bullets. When you pull the trigger a person could live or die. It's a 50% chance. Completely random.

The randomness of the film extends into real life. Yesterday I went to the cinema, Delphi in Stuttgart's Tübinger Straße, to see the newly remastered version of "Blood Simple". It was advertised that it would be shown in English with German subtitles. When the film started it was in German. I kicked myself, thinking I'd made a mistake, but I have no trouble understanding German so I remained in my seat. When the film finished I checked my ticket, and there it was in black and white: original version with subtitles.

I went downstairs to the cash desk, and there was already a crowd of people complaining about the wrong version being shown. Some were asking for their money back, but the man at the desk refused. He said that he couldn't refund anyone who sat through the whole film before complaining. Maybe the other customers were like me and assumed it was their own mistake. The inflexibility of the man at the desk shocked me. Delphi now has my nomination for Stuttgart's worst cinema.

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