A Serious Man

"What is TRUTH?", replied Pontius Pilate, when Jesus Christ affirmed in an ever-certain manner “Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice”. Coen brothers bring the same ambivalence to life and set it in Judea philosophy. & I am moved to write this because it's giving tough competition to Fargo as my favorite Coen's movie (Sorry, Lebowski fans!). I think I have a thing for mild comedies, characteristic and accentuated manner of dialogue deliveries (of the likes one can see in Oye Lucky Lucky Oye too), and a bunch of quirky characters out to create a mess everywhere. A Serious Man gives me just that, with an icing of contradictory situations raising doubts to everything around.

I would have missed many Judea connections in movie, but this cultural distance didn't stop me from enjoying so many of its scenes. The creepy but funny short dybbuk tale that starts movie, provides almost a perfect setting for what follows. Some of the scenes in movie stand out. In one of them, a young kid walks into a senior Rabbi's office and in the hallway's gallery sees Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac. His expressions change to fear from uncertainty as he approaches desk of Rabbi staring at him, only to find him reciting a couplet of 'Dont you want somebody to love'. This kind of unexpected and uncertain events are spread throughout the movie. No wonder, the protagonist Larry teaches Schroedinger's cat experiment in college.

& the best of all is the way movie ends, again, totally unexpected and uncertain. Just like the dybbuk story.