Rating: 3.5 / 5
In Sins of America, during the Great Depression, Everett Ulysses McGill (George Clooney), Delmar ODonnell (Tim Blake Nelson) and Pete (John Turturro) escape from a convict camp. On their way through rural America, they encounter all sorts of strange characters. From sirens to a one-eyed Bible seller and a blind man, they meet a wide variety of creatures.
The Great Depression claimed many lives and ruined a country spoiled by pride and power. Companies went bankrupt and many opportunities to make a profit legally and get rid of this capital were gone. At this exact time is O Brother, Where Art Thou? – Eine Mississippi-Odyssee settled and tells of three convicts who escape from their captivity. The odyssey mentioned in the title is actually plagued by a motif that feels more topical than ever today. It’s regarding the longing that the main character Ulysses Everett McGill feels for his ex-wife. But that longing isn’t just tied to treasure, as Ulysses Everett McGill is always emphasizing, but also to finding your way home. The concept of home is repeatedly appropriated, above all by the new right, and glorified to the effect that there are people who belong in a certain place and others who come from outside and disturb the so-called peace. The goal of home first of all emerges from arbitrary and selfish reasons, according to which the characters all glorify a place that never existed in this way. Some people even lie and mean something completely different when they say treasure. In addition, the motives of the figures still seem quite idiosyncratic at first.
But even these figures are not on the right spectrum. Intellectually, however, they are not exactly among the very great when they find themselves in superstition, longing and an urge for forgiveness. The concrete comparison to actual rights will follow soon. In the course of the story, the team meets the Ku Klux Klan, who wants to murder a friend of theirs. The anti-heroes of this story really turn out to be great servants of philanthropy, because they endanger their own lives in order to help a fellow human being. This contrast with regard to the actually obstinate motivation at the beginning turns out to be a farce compared to capitalism, because the characters aren’t purely out for profit and there also have to be certain limits that aren’t crossed here. But the constellation of faith and the judiciary is a little more exciting. Because our heroes have gotten into a situation through mistakes, following which they are looking for forgiveness. This means that they adhere to common stigmata of norms and values, which they can never live up to. Now, belief as such is a construct that, in its pure execution, is of course incredibly naive. Of course, this can be thought of in a much more philosophical and academic way in meta-levels, but pure belief is more likely to be found in naive minds. So if one looks at the history of the church as a whole, it becomes clear how imperfect the nature is in general. At the same time, this is unmasking for the Church, which presumes to be able to moralize. All you have to do is take a look at the news and you will find that there is hardly a more criminal organization than the church.
It is also interesting that the twilight is acted out quite blatantly here as the individual, in the form of the three main characters, hopes to be acquitted of all the sins committed in some form of religious ritual. There are of course several approaches in which the characters deepen their ideology. Of course, one can once more see this as a graduating of mistakes, but at the same time the question can also be asked whether the judiciary and executive should have the right at all to decide on an individual’s life in this way. Can there be limits? Are there limits? – These are questions that almost every one of us would probably answer with a simple “yes”. And yet the discussion regarding limits and values is still an important one, because you can make big mistakes as a collective. Then, also in view of the fact that the film has a strange ending, the question arises as to whether absolution can only be granted by the imperfect nature of man. After all, as a society, and as each other, we presume to know what is right. However, the film also proves that these theses cannot necessarily distinguish between good and evil by depicting the creature as completely imperfect.
The film also clearly does away with any heroic myths, in that this Odysseus is not a ray of sunshine, but the living antithesis of it. He is a robber who supposedly buried the loot from his last heist and thus tricks his fellow inmates in order to win them over. Of course, Odysseus is rotated around his own axis, but not completely deconstructed, because the Coen brothers perhaps didn’t have enough courage to present the viewer with a complete villain. In large parts, Joel and Ethan Coen also manage to create a film that entertains in any case and to equip with some bitterly angry and black-humoured borrowings. Especially when it comes to the Ku Klux clan, the film is then quite brushed on riot. Then once more, there’s a good deal of well-done comedy, such as the main characters hiding in a barn, a frog becoming the center of attention, or the team meeting Baby Face Nelson. However, it is clear that not every gag ignites and is always on-point, and the technical gimmicks, such as the music and the surrounding staging, sometimes seem too artificial at times.
And precisely because the film makes such a strong reference to the odyssey, of course some roles are also assigned here that are quite complicated to process in the concept of the great depression, even on an interpretive level. There are the sirens, or the seer who enters the story. At the same time, these figures are accompanied by several tonalities in their performance in the film. There is, of course, the sexual desire for the sirens, which also symbolize transience and drive. Then there’s faithful wife Penny Wharvey-McGill, who is actually modeled on Penelope. It becomes clear that the faithful wife, like the radiant hero, is designed with a little more contrast here, and that it doesn’t seem to stay with eternal loyalty anymore.
With their offbeat narrative style, their sense of aesthetics and small gimmicks, the Coen brothers succeed O Brother, Where Art Thou? – Eine Mississippi-Odyssee a work, which for the most part is just a lot of fun. The rather tragic, difficult-looking story is enhanced by current problems and very well-placed humor. At the same time, the acting team is accompanied by so many emotional states in their seemingly absurd surroundings that make it difficult not to like this film.
