The Geekscape Primer: Drive
Are you a fan of the early lean work of Michael Mann? Yearn for the synthy score and badass driving found in To Live and Die in L.A.? Perhaps you long for the aloof cool of Walter Hill’s The Driver? Well my friend you are in luck as this Friday sees the release of Drive. The film has played the festival circuit for a while (most recently at the Torronto International Film Festival) and has received glowing notices. Now you, the paying audience, finally get a chance to check in and decide for yourself. Is it a new masterpiece? A competent genre exercise? Or overhyped junk? (Likely not the last one.) The film’s director, Nicolas Winding Refn, is a name you, the smart and savvy geek reader, should be familiar with. If not, that’s okay because we at Geekscape have you covered.
Winding Refn is a Danish filmmaker who studied in America (dropped out) then headed back to Denmark to direct his first film, Pusher.
The Must-Sees
Pusher is a grimy, violent look at the life of a mid-level drug dealer named Frank whose deal goes from bad to worse when the cops come to bust him. From there, life gets worse and worse for Frank as his drug mule, his sidekick, his employer and his prostitute girlfriend all betray him in some way or another. Unlike American crime films that frequently glamorize criminal endeavor while simultaneously shaking a finger at them, Winding Refn doesn’t shy away from the darkest corners of the underworld. Our hero is NOT a crook with a heart of gold in a bad place, he’s a frequently temperamental jerk who doesn’t care if his clientele lives or dies, and isn’t afraid to beat the crap out of a friend with a baseball bat. Refn shot in hand-held, which may not seem like a big deal now – but realize that this film was released in 1996, long before we entered this current era of “Chaos Cinema.” The handheld camerawork is not the only intriguing aspect of the filmmaking, Winding Refn also shot the film chronologically (though he later reshot out of order when the film needed modifications). There are two follow-up Pusher films that make the Pusher trilogy which feature other characters in the universe of the film.
Despite its title, Bronson is not a biopic of the stoic, tough guy Death Wish star, but of a different Charlie Bronson. This Bronson is renowned for being the most violent criminal of the UK. Bronson is an incredibly stylized film (Winding Refn changes color palettes, shows a huge range of shots and edits like a madman here) as well as an intriguing meditation on violence. Bronson the man is filled with brutal, seething anger, and in collaborating with actor Tom Hardy, Winding Refn playfully pokes and scrapes at stylized violence in films. Bronson may be a sociopath, but he’s a fascinating one. Many reviewers likened the film to Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of A Clockwork Orange and the comparisons are apt. Bronson is available on Netflix watch instantly – it also behooves geeks to watch the film, as you can see Tom Hardy before he stole the show in Inception and gets even more high profile in The Dark Knight Rises (where he’s playing Bane if you didn’t know…are you SURE you’re on the right site?). If you want to see one film that shows the breadth and depth of Winding Refn’s style, this is the one.
Winding Refn’s most recent film, Valhalla Rising, builds on the grit and viscera of his previous films. The film is a fairly bare bones story, but it’s filled with haunting impressionistic flourishes; canted angles, blood red skies and tint changes, and scenes that play out more like tone poems than dialogue. The story follows a mute Viking called One-Eye (Casino Royale villain Mads Mikkelsen), who starts the movie a prisoner by another tribe of Norsemen. One-Eye taunts his captors with his silent defiance and then, with the help of a sympathetic slave, brutally slaughters them. One-Eye falls in with a group of Crusaders, manages to get even more lost, and the whole group descends into madness and violence. Fun for the whole family! But seriously, it’s not a film for all tastes. Those seeking action and gore will get it, but the film is not afraid to be contemplative, looking at the breaking point in group dynamics, people plunging into madness, and the friction caused by unfamiliar forces clashing together. It’s some heady stuff and you can watch it right now, courtesy of Netflix instant watch. If you’re set up for it, I would urge you to watch it on a big screen.
Deeper Cuts
Bleeder is a small scale drama about a married couple played by Kim Bodina and Mads Mikkelson. Their isolated lives are driven to anger and violence when Bodina’s character reveals she is pregnant. It’s Winding Refn working on a smaller scale, but the emotions run as deep and intense as his larger, better-known films.
Fear X opened to limited release and mixed notices and is rarely brought up in NWR discussion. It is worth noting, however, as it marks the director’s English language debut. The film stars John Turturro as a man who is haunted by visions that causes him to suspect that the circumstances of his wife’s murder are far different than originally reported.
Read up on Nicholas Winding Refn and still aren’t sure if his films are for you? Let’s look at some similar work that you may already be familiar with.
Similar Work
Still not sure if Nicolas Winding Refn is for you? Fans of Frank Miller’s “Sin City,” the boisterous pulp novels of Mickey Spillane and more vicious European directors like Gaspar Noe should take to Drive like ducks to water. Fans of the Grand Theft Auto series of games should also like what they see in Drive. If you saw Thor and were furious by the inaccurate depictions of Norsemen and the lack of blood should seek out Valhalla Rising post-haste (also, seriously, consider reeling in those expectations on comic adaptations). As I said previously, A Clockwork Orange is a similarly well-directed character piece devoted to a sociopath and fans of that film would do well to seek out Bronson. If you dug the recent foreign crime film Gamora then the Pusher trilogy should be right up your alley.
Budding cinephiles would do well to seek out Winding Refn’s work as he is a still emerging talent poised to break out as a go-to director. Already in the pipeline are TWO more team-ups with Ryan Gosling (the actor and director have become very close friends and collaborators through Drive). The first is called Only God Forgives which features a Bangkok police lieutenant and a gangster settling their differences in a Thai- boxing ring. The second is a remake of Logan’s Run. Additionally Winding-Refn has spoken in numerous press junkets of wanting to a direct a Wonder Woman film with Christina Hendricks in the title role. While I would be first in line to see the talented and gorgeous Miss Hendricks in the role, the project is not even under consideration for development at Warner Bros at this time. While you wait for that you have your homework readers, now get to it and have a bloody good time.
