DRIVE

Nicolas Winding Refn

1h 44m  •  2011

drive_movie_avatar

Review by Beatrice On 20-Aug-2023

The end justifies any means in Driver's life: in this film the protagonist is what he does, he drives and is called a "chauffeur," but as a stuntman in Hollywood it is only a part-time job, otherwise he is a mechanic by day and a "professional" by night at the disposal of crime.

His job is to drive cars and to control the weather; one more minute and the wait expires.

Everything changes when he meets his neighbor, Irene and her son Benicio and is transformed when her husband, Standard, comes into her life.

Driver is of few words, listens and responds telegraphically, sometimes smiling.... when he is at Irene's house.

Like a perfect psychopath, the goal of saving mother and child will lead him to use any means even that of getting his hands dirty with violence and blood.

Driver wears gloves when he drives and sometimes a mask when needed.

Driver kills like a professional killer, cold, lucid and sometimes moved.

Driver is violent, never more so than when he loves.

No sex scenes in the film, but the absolute violence of total love.

Driver becomes the pawn in a losing war; he will have to keep looking over his shoulder even as he tries to close the story in his own way.

"Art is an act of VIOLENCE," the director argues, and his is an extreme act.

It is the art of representing the violence of love, an absolute love.

Driver is a psychopath and loves totally, his is not a part-time love.

Is absolute love only psychopathic?

Is the psychopath Ryan Gosling?

Long live psychopathic love!

Magical overhead shots, artful framing, music instead of words, an elevator to the gallows...

One wonders why Denmark manages to produce so many great directorial talents; it may be as Nicolas Winding Refn says, in those countries they control emotions that are not to be shown and this produces passivity and repression that becomes a gift, the need to produce art...

AN IMPERDIBLE FILM, a unique experience.

A true balance between reality and stylization.

20-Aug-2023 by Beatrice


Nicolas Winding Refn movies