Review of Blood Simple (1985) by Snigdh J — 15 Apr 2011

Neo-noir has been quite a confusing term for me. I hv seen it being used for the films in which I cdn't detect any sort of noirish element. Probably it is due to the restrictions of colored cinematography which renders it very difficult to capture shadows & lighting, a quintessential part of old noirs.

So what we are left with is feel,the atmosphere,the characters & background score. And keeping these in mind Blood Simple is closest to the old noirs among whatever I hv seen after Polanski's Chinatown . Ofcourse, it also carries that unique Coen Brother's flair where characters are thrown in situation they don't hv any clue about and keep reacting weirdly in response to that and succumbing to what seems to be a conspiracy by fate. So there is that sense of doom about those fragile, riddled with flaws characters that you may hv detected in your favorite noirs.

Blood Simple writhes with tension because you as a viewer never know how the characters going to react in spite of being the only one aware of all the pieces and this behavioral suspense infuses a raw tension, not the contrived one you might come across in ordinary thrillers.

Brilliant!!...