Behold my favorite shot:

The camera is static. Eli Sunday emerges out of the bottom-right corner. His black figure blocks almost half of our view. On his left, a toxic pool of oil placidly parades as a bizarre facsimile of the sky, while the pipe discharging the thick fluid seems instead to spew out light and airy clouds. Eli walks with a steady and confident step towards this microcosm of slick heaven and a scorched earth. With a cruel, drawled out delay, the camera then pans upward. While we wait for elevation, the mechanical eye lays bare the film’s dirtiest trick: this sky—so close, so attainable—has an upward limit. And its two earthly banks are dark with oil residues.

There will be no salvation.

Unfazed, Eli marches on, prepared to walk on water and to trample paradise. In the last image of the shot, he stands on the door of this toxic heaven, as his silhouette is engulfed by the pool of oil; a mere shadow among the illusory clouds.

Counter-shot: