Inside Llewyn Davis

Inside Llewyn Davis is a bizarre kind of time travelling machine that took me to places I remembered in my life.  It felt as I watched it as if I'd been to a place exactly like so many of the homes, diners, clubs evoked.  I recognized them.  I didn't recognize them consciously, but on a weirdly deep level, and the sight of these places and people acted as a kind of...well it's like when you smell Vicks Vapo rub and are brought back to the time you were six years old, and sick, looking at the pictures in a yellowing Dennis The Menace paperback that collected old comics from the news paper.  And the baby sitter came by and placed a hot water bottle next to you, but with a layer of blanket in between the bottle and your skin so you wouldn't burn.

When you see the people and places in this film you get a sense of them having existed before and after the moment we catch them.  They are completely formed and we happen to catch a piece of their lives. 

It's a pretty wonderful film and it's made me a bit puzzled, and sad, and nostalgic.  It's the kind of film that probably won't win any Academy Awards, because it's not a "grand" film.  It's unpresumptuous, and full of moments that can not be anticipated.  It's strange and sometimes sad, and in some ways mythic.