In Copenhagen, Leo is going increasingly off the rails, frustrated by his shit job, tiny apartment and the fact that his wife Louise is pregnant. To escape from his claustrophobia, he meets up with Louis a racist bouncer at his club, where Leo witnesses a shooting and vicious beating. Initially shaken by the violence, he becomes increasingly seduced by it. –IMDb
Nicolas Winding Refn was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1970. He moved with his parents at the age of 10 to New York, returning to Copenhagen at 17. After graduating from high school, Refn attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, but found the environment unbearable and was quickly expelled. Back in Denmark he was accepted by the Danish Film School but dropped out one month prior to the start of term. Having caught a short film by Refn on an obscure cable TV, a Danish producer offered him 3.2 million Danish kroner to turn the short into a feature. Thus at the age of 24, Refn found himself writing and directing his remarkable, hyper violent and uncompromising feature film debut: Pusher.
Pusher became a cult phenomenon and won Refn instant international critical acclaim. This spurred him to push the boundaries of his filmmaking further: the result was the close-to-the-edge, highly stylized and intricately gritty Bleeder, which premiered… read more
The most underrated film in Refn's Canon, Pretty damn bleak with a De niro like performance in Kim Bondia and seen Mikkelsen and Buric play agaisnt type as Video store nerds. Especially watch Mikkelsen who breaks your heart as the loner put down upon friend in the group who falls in love with a equally loner cafe worker (refn's real life wife) which takes us away from the dark heart of the film.
Not Refn's best work, but it's still a well-structured character study with some great performances most notably from Mikkelsen. I like the constant movie references of course but it's far from touching gold like Pusher did. Good stuff.
Great characters especially Mads awkward has heck film buff, Refn's direction is impeccable, really love his style. Nice use of colour and fades during pivotal moments in the film, Refn really does use some weird song choices during scenes, some that I don't really get. Nonetheless this is a great character study film.
