«The Ballad of Buster Scruggs», a charming ballad by the Coen brothers

Saturday's Netflix & chill - Ivan Garcia

When the directors of No Country for Old Men take on the western genre, it's sure to cause a stir. By revisiting the myths we have about the Far West through storytelling, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs turns out to be a golden nugget: this film has the merit of entertaining and confronting us with death. It's up to us to find the resources to face it. Onward to the West, companions!

On a table, a book of stories entitled The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and other stories opens to take the viewer-reader on six adventures involving the conquest of the West. Hold on tight, we're going to tell you Once upon a time in the West, or something resembling it. Fragmenting the feature into six different stories seems a little odd, especially when you're used to single-story films. But the stories we are shown are not unfamiliar. And that's what makes it so that, even though it's short, we understand everything. We recognize.

The death of our idols

Six stories, six characters to follow and evolve. A cowboy who shoots faster than his shadow, a condemned man hanged twice, a showman and his orator, a young girl on her way to a faraway town, a gold-digger in search of riches, a stagecoach full of friendly passengers... The fresco painted by the Cohen brothers covers all the mythology that comes to us from the West. With all its ugliness and beauty. All those figures we've met in the past, on a Saturday morning in front of the TV, watching John Wayne or Clint Eastwood movies, or simply the cartoon Lucky Luke. And that's what we like. Our idols, so often admired in childhood, can now be admired with adult eyes.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, It's not just about watching the same movies as before. Now that the kids have grown up, we can get down to business. Look beyond the naivety and innocence and dig deeper. In general, our heroes - no matter how much trouble they got into - came out on top, winning, with two pistol shots and a bottle of whisky. Often, they inflicted death and never aged. But now, because «we're big», as they say, we can see that our old heroes were human after all. Clichés, yes, but confronted with death. The Cohen brothers' film plays on this peculiarity by ensuring that every character in the story is touched by death. The death of a loved one, or even their own death.

In the first story, a dashing, singing cowboy named Buster Scruggs is the fastest gunman in the West. He rides his horse, singing and shooting, in search of thrills and spills. But will he always be the best? That's the question. As the saying goes, you'll always find someone stronger than you. In the second story, a thief tries to rob a bank but doesn't succeed. Sentenced to be hanged, he lives a funny story. Even if it means being hanged twice. The film's six stories add a touch of realism to the West we idealized as children. A place and a time that were nonetheless cruel, violent and savage.

The fatality of time

Aesthetically, the codes of the Western are mastered, both in terms of the fairly traditional settings and the characters. When the gold-digger arrives in his valley, it's admirably beautiful. You really feel like you're there. The irony deployed by the filmmakers in their stories highlights the cruelty of existence, as well as the punishment for the arrogance displayed by some of the protagonists. We can't help but meditate on these issues. See The Ballad of Buster Scruggs made me realize that we often forget that time passes. And that we need to know what we want, because sometimes we take the wrong road, or even the wrong desire. The punishment is harsh afterwards.

In one of the stories, a showman looks after a young man who has no legs or arms, but is a brilliant orator who gives shows. Each time he performs, he declaims poetic, biblical and historical texts with great enthusiasm. Audiences are captivated by his talent. But the more he performs, the fewer people attend his shows. Until one day, the showman decides to replace him with another, more lucrative attraction - a performing hen. Perhaps the moral of this feature-length film is the same as that of the poem the speaker recites at each performance. The moral of the sonnet Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

«My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings.
See my work, O mighty ones, and despair!
Next to it, nothing remains.»

The more powerful, arrogant or admired you are, the less you realize that time is running out and that, inevitably, you've wasted it doing meaningless things. Is despair all that's left? No. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is not a pessimistic film. Despite some rather dark passages that put our childlike view of the West into perspective, some stories have happy endings and even bring a touch of hope and cheerfulness. Like the Cohen brothers' gold digger, everyone has to find their own treasure. And then, all will be well with the best of the West.

Photo credit: © Netflix

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