The film is an alternative tribute to the type of western film by the Coen brothers. The film consists of six stories of different lengths. The only connection between these stories is that they take place on the border of the United States in the Old West world, so they are not coherent, but each story has a Cohen-like taste. The beginning of the film can be regarded as the best story. This story is very interesting and contains some superb and funny battle scenes. The cowboy Buster Skogrus wore sparkling spurs and brand new white breeches. This was a tribute to the Roy Rogers Show in the 1940s and 1950s, but the Coen brothers soon overturned the audience’s expectations. Obviously Buster is no longer the good cowboy humming. He is a deadly agile shooter, known for his fastest drawing speed. On the whole, most of the stories written by the Coen brothers have no happy endings. The hidden meaning is "Stories can last forever, but people cannot." Each story is shot with spectacular scenery as the background-mountains, rivers and vast grasslands. "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" is not smooth, but it always delights the viewer. It is interspersed with many hilarious fragments to alleviate the cold moral behind the story. Life is cruel.
The film is like a tenderly woven picture scroll, and the actors' performances are polished and gleaming. Liam Nissen is an excellent salesman, always thinking about bringing changes to his performance. Zoe Kazan perfectly plays a woman whose destiny is about to change, and Tim Blake Nissen is The best Buster.
The film does not subvert the Coen Brothers' prudential and ironic aesthetic tone, but the loose structure of this ensemble film shows the playful and lively side of these two master veterans.
The film tells the story of six western themes. Between each story, the Coen brothers added an illustration of the kind of children's book of the 1940s and 1950s, giving people an illusion of reading a story book. This unique form links different stories together, making the whole film like a collection of western stories that have turned yellow. The film is not the best work of the Coen Brothers, but it is a wonderful dessert for the fans of the Coen Brothers.
The western elements of the film, the nice playlist, and so on, are all very Coen brothers, and have the meaning of anti-Western classic mode. The first story is against the contract, the second story is against the aura of individual heroism, the third story begins to shift from humor to sad chants, the fourth is the most concise and neat, and the fifth begins to establish a connection with the current context. The sixth looks like a top-up, but it's actually a finishing touch. Although it is a collection of short fables, the Coen brothers try to connect the cores of the fables together. Although the stories are very light, they can bring a lasting charm to the perception. However, what really reflects the style of the Coen brothers, or the personality of the creators, is that these six short films are completely different in narrative and audio-visual language.
