After being particularly confident that Viggo Mortensen would win the award for Best Actor in Eastern Promises, I was a little surprised when the Oscar went to Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood instead. Of course, having not seen the latter, I did not go about shouting my indignations - but I was quite pleased when Immi decided to call me out to watch it that night itself (indirectly making me miss the rerun of the Academy Awards). Oh well, I guess I’d rather watch the movie that won some of these awards, rather than watch celebrities walk on stage and holler gratitude to names I don’t know.
Either way, I was not disappointed. I didn’t know what to expect initially (I refrained from reading too much about the movie), and what I saw was a downright amazing piece of cinematic art. I do not know what else I could add to the many reviews already written, so I’ll just try to condense my first impressions. It starts off a little unconventionally, taking its time to introduce you to our lead protagonist - a greedy oil prospector on his way to great heights, and eventually how he will come to clashes with his own family (and others), and his own faith (and others). It uses a minimalist score that gets under your skin and works wonders in heightening the terrifying, bleak atmosphere of that era. There Will Be Blood portrays a dark look at our many human deficiencies - and as one reviewer aptly described - particularly scary in the many parallels that we can draw in comparison to our time now. And somehow, the aptly named title will be there crawling at the back of your mind, an inescapable eventuality.
Without a doubt, Daniel Day-Lewis firmly deserved that Oscar this year - it’s just unfortunate that Viggo had to go up against a performance of that caliber.
