there will be blood

The first rental after the whole snow problems was There Will Be Blood.

I knew very little about Blood, other than it was about oil and it has received a lot of critical praise. Well, it turns out it's only sort-of about oil, but pretty much deserves he critical praise.

I say it's only sort of about oil, because my feeling about it was the film was more of a character study. The character in question - Daniel Plainview - just happens to be an oil man.

Or he becomes an oil man - initially he's a silver prospector who happens to strike oil. He's also working alone and manages to break his leg by falling down his mineshaft. Daniel then drags himself to some sort of claims office, where he gets exploitation rights. Well, I think this is what happens - the details are actually important in a way, because what we're experiencing is more to do with Daniel's character than his finding silver or oil.

And this is where the film plays its first clever trick. His dragging himself miles to the claims office with a badly broken leg shows us his determination, but it also makes us feel like he's a decent guy. You can't help but feel happy for him that his hard work and horrible accident was worth it as he finds riches.

Shortly afterwards, Daniel also adopts the son of one of his men who was killed in accident down his oil well. The son's mother died during childbirth, so he's an orphan and Daniel adopts him - he can't be a bad person, right?

But here's the thing - the rest of the film charts either his steady decline in character, or steadily reveals his true nature to us. Which it is is never definitively expressed, but then that's the point - is he a bastard all along, or does he become a bastard?

Certainly the people he encounters are mostly just as unpleasant. A preacher, Eli, plays a particularly important role. Eli is just as unpleasant in Daniel, with one of the only real difference between them being that Eli hides behind the facade of being a preacher - a man of the lord - where Daniel is a plain capitalist.

The central performance by Daniel Day Lewis is captivating - it's quite a remarkable portrayal. The score is also remarkable - it's just not what I was expecting at all. The score is orchestral, but it's really dark and sinister. If you've ever seen 2001 then the music that's used during the bit where they discover the monolith on the moon is how the whole film is scored. But it really works - informing you of the underlying nastiness.

However, there were a few things I didn't like. The main one was that we never get enough detail on the other characters. As a simple example, where Daniel sends H.W. away there's no detail at all - we certainly never see where H.W. ends up.

The other thing was I didn't really like the ending. I could see how it worked and how it paralleled other parts of the film, but I dunno, it had that un-nerving quality of just sort of stopping.

I know that sort of thing is more 'realistic', but that doesn't make it satisfying.