Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Good morning Leo!

Today is a quite lazy day of mine. I did nothing except playing games and watching movies. I let myself to have a day like today because I had quite a tough week. Don’t worry, I still have time for this blog.

Today’s review is about a movie, what a surprise! The movie is about music (another suprise!), this is the movie that I have watched after Sing Street.

“Inside Llewyn Davis” is a movie of the Coen brothers. As you may not know, the Coen Brothers are very famous American filmmakers, their movies have won numerous awards including 7 Oscars. Their best work could be listed as Fargo (1996), No Country for Old Men (2007) or True Grit (2010).

This time, we will travel back into the ‘60s, my favorite decade. But unlike my imagination about a beautiful, joyful and colorful decade, New York winter 1961 is sad, tired and cold, warns us about a not so bright story.

Indeed.

Llewyn Davis (played by Oscar Isaac) is a folk singer. He’s good, you could see it in the very first second of the movie, that’s how he makes a living. But good for a not so famous kind of music in the ‘60s can’t give him a decent life.

“If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it’s a folk song.” That is folk.

He’s also selfish, unhappy and deeply irresponsible. “Inside Llewyn Davis” follows him for a week of his life. In the hand of the Coen brothers, even a person like him is worth following around.

Go all in, get lost in his world, this is one of the strangest journey that you can get. It’s not artistic as movies of Kar-Wai Wong, it doesn’t have climax for the audience to hold their breath and waiting for the outcome. Don’t expect anything and you will get everything. The story is so ordinary that reminds me of a short Vietnamese story of Thạch Lam – Cô Hàng Xén. You can read it here: http://kilopad.com/truyen-ngan-c197/doc-sach-truc-tuyen-co-hang-xen-b10625/chuong-1-ti1.

The situation of Llewyn is a typical case for any unknown singer, painter, actor out there, struggling to survive day by day. Many of them quit their dream and find a “normal” job, a job that they don’t like, a job that kill them from inside, but in the end of the day that job keeps the food on the table. It’s not their fault, it’s just how the world works, ‘60s or 2017, the situation is the same.

The largest decision that Llewyn made in the movie could be the trip to Chicago, and then when the outcome is not as he expected, he returns to the mediocre Llewyn. It’s like a series of “what if” that we expect that the movie would go to have a sort of “happy ending” at the end. What if he turned right to Akron? What if he sang a different song? Sadly, Llewyn Davis’ life is just an infinite loop. In the movie, Llewyn’s eyes never smile or happy for once.

The music of this film Is flawless. I think if Llewyn is born in our time, he would be a famous singer, another what if question. Thanks to this movie, I know that folk song is that beautiful and meaningful, just not easy to make money from it in the ‘60s. The soundtracks are so good that I don’t know which song is my favorite, they are all my favorites. I remembered that I told you that I want to open a coffee house in Dalat just to play this kind of music, so people could have a peaceful time to enjoy their drinks and their life.

There are two scenes that I love most. First is the scene that Llewyn and Jim (Justin Timberlake) and Al Cody (Adam Driver) are in the studio for the song “Please Mr. Kennedy”. I love it because you can see the contrary between Llewyn and Jim. Jim connects with people, he wrote the song and continue thriving in the music industry. Conversely, Llewyn is hard to love, migrating from couch to couch, having an undetermined career and don’t even love the song, he thinks that song is ridiculous. The second scene is when Llewyn plays for his father, I cried in that scene to be honest.

All in all, quiet, melancholy, slightly dark and unique are how I describe “Inside Llewyn Davis”.

Finally, a playlist, because one song is not enough. Wish you would have a beautiful morning with this playlist. I imagine you listen to the song by your morning coffee.

-MiloufromSaigon-

P.s: Sorry for the late uploading, procrastinating captured me for the whole weekend. Hopefully the coming week will be better.

PsPs: My favorite characters in the movie are the cats, yeah I love them!