Drive was one of my favorite movies of 2011. Great performances (I'm a sucker for Bryan Cranston), awesome color, and amazing bursts of violence. Just a terrific time at the cinema. Shortly after Drive's release in Portland, the Northwest Film Center presented a Nicolas Winding Refn retrospective and knowing that I wasn't going to make it to any of the screenings, I decided to have my own, Netflix assisted Refn-spective (see what I did there?). Slightly complicating the planned marathon of the six previous films of Refn's available (Netflix doesn't have Bleeder), my son was born, so I had to do it over the course of a week. Instead of discussing each film in depth individually (Those films are: Pusher, Fear X, With Blood On My Hands: Pusher 2, I Am the Angel of Death: Pusher 3, Bronson, and Valhalla Rising), I'm going to give mostly overall impressions with some individual talking points.
The Pusher Trilogy impressed me insofar as through the first 40 minutes of each, I really didn't care much for the films. They all move deliberately with extended scenes of people acting like jerks and idiots. Not much happens and one wonders if anything will ever happen. To me, the title Pusher makes me think there's going to be a lot more drug pushing, but each of the films is about someone getting chewed up in the crime business and only tangentially related to pushing drugs. In this first film, this was unexpected and once I realized what was going on, I began to get invested in the fall of the character. Interestingly, the sequels follow different side characters from the first film a number of years later. While I'm not the biggest fan of sequels, I like this approach as it recognizes that every person in a film has their own story even if we don't see it. The concept expands the world of the trilogy (and also allows for an unending stream of sequels, should the need arise).
The Pusher trilogy has a very grimy aesthetic and very distinctive look, which is mighty impressive since it'd been almost a decade between the first and second movies. The camerawork is entirely handheld, which is probably part of why it took a while for me to get into the the experience. Because I'm a simple man, I watched Pusher 2 before Fear X. As a result, I was incredibly impressed with how different Fear X looked as I thought Refn was still learning his trade. In fact, Refn is quite accomplished over his filmography of varying his style as is appropriate for the subject. He's clearly influenced by Stanley Kubrick, but he lacks the trademarks that made Kubrick so distinctive. I don't believe this is a bad thing.
Fear X is where I first started noticing the Kubrickian flourishes. Refn's shot composition and the way he can milk tension out of holding an image or with the use of music makes the experience of watching Fear X more impressive than it is. It helps that John Turturro gives a strong and understated performance, but the film loses it when Turturro is no longer the focus. The movie does a lot to show that Refn had promise (much like Ti West) beyond the handheld Pusher aesthetic (even though he returned to the Pusher world for his next two features because Fear X bombed and ruined his production company).
Something about Refn's work cries out for me to pair it up with the films of other directors (aside from the Pusher trilogy, which obviously would be shown together). Even though the subject matter is vastly different, Fear X makes me want to show it with The Shining because of the influence mentioned above and the treatment of hotel space and the general creeping menace vibe (and possible slow decent into madness). Bronson, which is easily the best of his pre-Drive movies, probably leads to the most interesting and bizarre pairings (and the most options). Based on subject matter alone, I'd love to have a double feature of Bronson and Chopper (starring Eric Bana). Both are about charismatic, slightly bonkers criminals and both are immensely entertaining. However, the more interesting TRIPLE feature would be showing Bronson with A Clockwork Orange (once again, the framing frequently suggests Kubrick) and Rushmore (there are many shots that evoke Wes Anderson, as well). Just thinking of that triple feature makes me all warm inside.
Bronson takes one of the more interesting approaches to a biopic that I've seen. It's essentially narrated by Bronson (and Tom Hardy's performance as Bronson is utterly incredible), but it's in some fantasy world where he's on stage in front of a crowd performing his life story which make up and costume changes (for those who don't know, Bronson is famous in England for being sentenced to seven years in jail and spending thirty in solitary confinement, so he's not getting up on stage any time soon). To use a hackneyed expression, it's an electrifying film and immensely entertaining.
Finally, I made it to Valhalla Rising which was probably the most surprising movie I watched in this collection because it wasn't at all what I expected from a movie about vikings called Valhalla Rising. I thought it'd be some huge viking epic along the lines of Pathfinder, instead I got a slow, mostly silent exploration of a journey to death. So obviously, the movie pairing for Valhalla Rising would be Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man. Valhalla Rising isn't a great movie, but it looks terrific and kind of washes over you. The music is great, but I wish Refn had been able to secure Mogwai like he'd intended.
Part way through Valhalla Rising, I realized something about Refn's films. Thus far in his career, he's not to interested in exploring female characters. The only movie so far to have a woman of any substance is Drive and she's a bit of a a plot device to get the driver into a messed up situation. Valhalla Rising only features a cluster of naked women briefly. Likewise, there are very few in all of his other films. I don't think this is a problem, per se, as like in prison or amongst crusading vikings isn't necessarily where one would find women, but I hope that Refn starts to focus on some strong female characters to go with the varied subject matter of his films (while he doesn't have the distinctive look of Kubrick, I do enjoy that Refn similarly tackles a variety of genres). With that in consideration, I'm still glad that we have Refn making movies. The guy's got talent and a different sensibility that sets him apart from most other filmmakers.
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