I mentioned the caricatures of the movie in the previous post A Serious Man, the Film by and about Coen Brothers. The exaggerated and mechanical movements, the distorted facial proportions, the surreal closeups. If not for the context of movie there would have been a scandal. Everyone speaks in code. The most cataclysmic life events are wrapped in a camouflage; nobody ever says what they mean. No wonder the Coen brothers prefer visual texture to the textual verbiage. To top the caricatures are the three Rabbis. I dont want to completely spoil it. Just go and see for yourself. But there is also the ever present and invisible character of God AKA Hashem. Larry Gopink asks every one of the Rabbis about it. He really wants to understand what the meaning of his struggle is. And of course the answers that he gets from the Rabbis is more profoundly grotesques than the facial idiosyncrasies.
P.S. As far as props go, that shelf in the background gets A+!
Further Reading:
A Serious Man, the Film by and about Coen Brothers
“woopsy-doopsy”
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans by Werner Herzog
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