2011/100' Listen here, while reading
Some movies have
you at their titles sequence. They bring to mind memories from the past, actors
who became symbols, iconic shots, bigger than life characters, titles made of
gold: Taxi driver, Pale Rider, Bullit.
Movies most filmmakers
dream of, they think they can make, they know the recipe, put in the right
ingredients and still, 9 times out of
10, the food comes out somewhat bland.
Then comes a Danish
director by the name of Nicolas Winding Refn (Pusher -1996, Bronson -2008), who fidgets with the classic
American story of the cursed hero with no name, revs the engine and takes it all the way to
the finish line of legend. And all that before the movie makes its way from the
festival circuit to the cinemas and ends up on the shelves of the DVD stores.
So what if this
director failed his driver's license exams, 8 times ?
The hero of
Drive has no past, no name. He is a Hollywood driver/
stuntman, a garage mechanic and occasionally a getaway driver for hire. He lives
a lonely-ascetic life until he falls in love with his neighbor, a young woman
named Irene who lives with her son Benicio. The father of the family is in jail. When he
is released his old "partners in
crime" blackmail him into
taking part in a robbery. The
driver offers to help him pay off his debts, but everything goes wrong.
Ryan Gosling delivers the role of the hero in low tones, with a moderate-leisurely manner, more machine than human himself, with a voice barely heard and a look that's difficult to decode. Hence the outbreak of violence that follows, his primitive side that is revealed is a reversal of its own.
The hero is what
he does, not what he says. His actions define him.
He never says "I love you", he sacrifices for those he
loves. His unique driving skills are his weapons, his way to avenge, his survival
mechanism, the means of his final escape.
Fundamental
lessons in screenwriting from the Iranian Hossein Amini who took the homonymous book of James Sallis
and deconstructed it -almost stripped it naked , leaving it
in its pure substance.
The music of the film has a story of its own. If we did not know
we'd thought we had dived into the melodic 80s. The electronic/pop
music bands like
Kraftwerk and the sound of Eurovision (!!!) inspired the
director, who believes that Los Angeles is a city stuck in the
80s.
Music producer Cliff Martinez brought together the sound of bands from
around the world and with his own musical score, created
an incredible soundtrack.
Special mention should be made to the College song "A real hero".
The whole gist of the character, the verse:
"by day he was a human being and by night he was a hero".
The casting, just perfect: Carey Mulligan is the innocent and loving mother who falls for the hero, Oscar Isaac is the repentant husband with the prescribed fate, the "villains" Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks, at the limit of the grotesque and painfully dangerous and Bryan Cranston as Shannon is the father figure of the hero, who finds himself surrounded by these characters and their choices and he is led to the final violent outburst.
The casting, just perfect: Carey Mulligan is the innocent and loving mother who falls for the hero, Oscar Isaac is the repentant husband with the prescribed fate, the "villains" Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks, at the limit of the grotesque and painfully dangerous and Bryan Cranston as Shannon is the father figure of the hero, who finds himself surrounded by these characters and their choices and he is led to the final violent outburst.
A big fan of Scorsese, Winding Refn, couldn't but have
in mind the Taxi-Driver. When we watch the hero driving in the artificially lit streets of LA, we remember
of another lonely hero by the name of Travis Bickle in a taxi, roaming the streets
of NYC and taking upon him to save, Iris, the
teenage prostitute, in another
terrible outburst of violence (Taxi
Driver -1976).
Here we also
find Albert Brooks, one of the villains of Drive.
The reasons why
you should watch Drive: All the above. A classic American story told in a
modern "European" way, where form serves narration and with breathtaking
anthology
scenes like the one in the elevator.
Certainly one
of my favorite films of all time and with Steve McQueen's "Shame" a great injustice in last year's Oscar race, with only
one nomination for best achievement in sound editing .
Although Winding
Refn, won the award for best director
in the 2011
Cannes Film Festival and with it a place in the heart of
all film enthusiasts.
Drive is out
on Blu-ray and DVD
You can find the greek version of my review HERE
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