"A Serious Man" new film by Ethan and Joel Coen

If you know me, you realize I am a big Joel and Ethan Coen film fan, or else you're obviously not a golfer, man. I absolutely had to see this film, tried to go thursday night but noooooo i had to do the Afghanistan program. The film was very cathartic. I understood what Larry Gopnick was going through, with all of the disasters and expectations thrown on him (at least I havent yet had to hold a Mishnah for my ex wife's dead lover) and the dreams that made him wake up screaming at night (I dont have those anymore). The humor was incredible, and the symbolism/metaphors were not all that subtle (Dr. Gopnick is a physics professor at one point explaining Heisenberg's uncertainty principle mathematically, as fast as possible, to an auditorium full of overwhelmed students, funny to rush through a presentation on uncertainty, then he says, "You probably will not understand this but you still need to know this for the mid term" - great metaphor ) (Gopnick is constantly trying to adjust the TV roof antenna for channel 4 so his son could watch F Troop, bad reception, life depends upon reception, all for a mindless or meaningless messages - F Troop as a metaphor for our meaningless existence) (the film starts with his wife complaining about his impotence, that Larry manages to get out of bed in the morning is itself amazing) and the Rabbi's who had no answer (except the last one who spoke to his son, from the Jefferson Airplane classic song: "When the truth is found, to be lies. And all the joy within you dies...what you gonna do then?"). But the ending was a shocker. Not funny. Really hard to be a human being on this planet. Funny funny film, until the end. nothing funny about that.

I think in many ways this is the Coen brothers best film. Profoundly spiritual (the old jewish dilemma, "why do the wicked prosper?") profoundly philosophical (our understanding of the world is dependent upon our perception) and dead-on existential. I really, really liked that ending.