Anna Daniels
No Country for Old Men is known for a great many things, but it’s perhaps best known for its ambiguous final scene. Ed Tom Bell sits at his dining room table and tells his wife about a dream he had. In the dream, he and his father are riding on horseback through the night, and his father rides ahead of him carrying fire in a horn. Ed Tom is visibly anxious when describing the dream, and notes that his father was wordless, with his head down, as he rode ahead of him to make a fire. Ed Tom concludes by saying that he knew his father would be waiting up ahead, having made a fire in “all that cold and all that dark.” With this, the dream and the film both end, leaving some viewers scratching their heads.
In the context of the rest of the film, as Ed Tom reckons with his place in a world he feels has passed him by, the dream feels like the conclusion of a man who knows that death is the next milestone. He’s already retired from the profession that his father did before him, his father’s been dead for years, and so his subconscious is telling him that a reunion in the afterlife seems to lie ahead. But of course, Ed Tom did wake from the dream, which means perhaps he has a little bit of living left to do before that happens.
Written by: Looper
