Blue Ruin (2014)
Directed by Jeremy Saulnier
When the quiet life of a beach bum is upended by dreadful news, he sets off for his childhood home to carry out an act of vengeance. However, he proves an inept assassin and finds himself in a brutal fight to protect his estranged family.
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20 films that influenced Blue Ruin
What critics say influenced Blue Ruin
Blue Ruin has a grubby, low-life mood that—especially with its theme of unresolved inter-family tensions—reminded me of Jeff Nichols’s debut Shotgun Stories .
“Blue Ruin” joins “Shotgun Stories” and “Joe” as vivid reminders that however homogenized American culture seems, there are still pockets that are distinct, with people who live by their own rules and their own bloody code.
Set among the beaches and backwoods of the South, "Blue Ruin" has an eye for local color and dog-eared realism that may remind you of the recent "Mud," or the lesser known (and even superior "Shotgun Stories").
Blue Ruin is all about escalation, and while its sensibility is Coen, its plot is very much like Shotgun Stories (which is still my favorite film directed by Jeff Nichols ), twisting about in the absurdity of a feud.
(In this sense, Blue Ruin brought to mind Jeff Nichols’ Shotgun Stories .)
In temperament, Blue Ruin calls to mind Nichols’ Shotgun Stories, which also examined how a personal feud escalates into bloodshed.
Joel and Ethan Coen's past crime oeuvre?most notably, 1984's "Blood Simple," 1996's "Fargo," and 2007's " No Country for Old Men "?appear to be definite inspiration, but Saulnier's tribute remains just that, going off in its own direction once the connection has been made.
Some have already compared the film to the work of the Coen brothers, by which they must mean No Country For Old Men ; the bloodshed comes nearly as fast and hard as it did there, and there’s a comparable focus on the details of life on the run—on staking out a location, or acquiring a weapon, or getting away from somewhere fast.
Critics, meanwhile, drew comparisons to the Coen brothers’ noir début “Blood Simple” and their magisterial chase film “No Country for Old Men”.
Dwight's encounter in the restroom near the beginning of the film is violently intense and similar to something straight out of " No Country for Old Men ."
The film has the sort of exquisitely-staged moments of violence and suspense that provoke comparisons to the Coen Brothers’ “Blood Simple” or “No Country For Old Men.”
Joel and Ethan Coen's past crime oeuvre?most notably, 1984's "Blood Simple," 1996's "Fargo," and 2007's " No Country for Old Men "?appear to be definite inspiration, but Saulnier's tribute remains just that, going off in its own direction once the connection has been made.
Certainly there's something of the Euro-inflected American gothic of Blood Simple (and, indeed, Fargo ) in there, although the bleak Israeli anti-revenge satire Big Bad Wolves is perhaps closer in both tone and intent.
El realizador Jeremy Saulnier ha sido comparado con los hermanos Cohen, por Simplemente sangre (1984) o Fargo (1996).
Later, following an encounter with a razor and a stolen wardrobe, he emerges as a fragile nebbish, an uncommunicative antihero alongside whom Dustin Hoffman's nerdy mathematician from Straw Dogs (to which this pays passing homage) seems like a man of muscular action from the outset.
That’s only part of the excitement of “Blue Ruin,” a film that veers from Coen brothers territory straight to the siege hell of Sam Peckinpah’s landmark “Straw Dogs” when Wade holes himself up in the Cleland family’s home in the woods.
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Again serving as his own d.p. (his other lensing credits include Matthew Porterfield’s “I Used to Be Darker” and “Putty Hill”), Saulnier cleverly establishes a man-on-the-run theme in his opening shot, before the action proper has even started.
You may know Saulnier as the director of something called Murder Party (07), but more likely you’ve seen his atmospherically scuffed lo-fi cinematography for Matt Porterfield’s Putty Hill and I Used to Be Darker .
Saulnier, who directed his first film, a horror farce, seven years ago (“Monster Party”), broke through as an artist by photographing Matt Porterfield’s cutting-edge movies about working-class Baltimore life, “Hamilton” and “Putty Hill.”
With a palette reminiscent of the loved-but-forgotten neo-noir Westerns of the 90s such as Red Rock West and Kill me Again, he paints the story of a resourceful everyman who becomes an avenger who finds himself out of his depth.
The film’s baby-faced, Brooklyn-based 36-year-old director Jeremy Saulnier was deeply flattered by the response (especially since he counts the Coens, along with Michael Mann’s 1981 film “Thief”, as influences), telling FRANCE 24 that his first outing at Cannes has been an exhilarating whirlwind.
With a palette reminiscent of the loved-but-forgotten neo-noir Westerns of the 90s such as Red Rock West and Kill me Again, he paints the story of a resourceful everyman who becomes an avenger who finds himself out of his depth.
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I have never been to the part of the world which Blue Ruin wraps around its cast, but the film offers, overall, the same half-impressionist, half-realist appeal of something like Green’s Undertow .
Of course, Tommy Wiseau also wore multiple hats for “The Room,” so it doesn’t always work out, but still.