This is the first in a series of film reviews. The magic of the silver screen has always had a strong allure – from classics of the 1920s to the most recent indie flick. I will usually watch any film once to give it a chance, but a truly great movie needs the perfect synthesis of writing, direction, acting, mood and music.
Review Number: 1
Review Date: 16 September 2012
Title: Drive
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan
Country: United States
Release Date: 2011
Genres: Crime, Drama, Neo-Noir
In this day and age of phenomenally loud behaviour – be it mobile phone conversations or the constant shouting from TV adverts – it’s refreshing to encounter a work of art that demonstrates elegance and moments of great calm.
Drive was released last year to critical acclaim. At Cannes the audience gave it a standing ovation and it’s easy to see why. It was the first film in a very long time that left me incredibly impressed with its requirement for patience, performances, style and music.
The premise is simple enough – a mysterious getaway driver & stuntman, a love interest, gangsters, and how trouble occurs when helping out a neighbour. But it is how this is presented that captures the attention.
Ryan Gosling displays the right mixture of charisma and menace as the Driver (we never know his name). At times he is so utterly still and silent, which is so different from the relentless barrage of words in many other films. The director, Nicolas Winding Refn, pays tribute to the 80s with the retro choice of music and direction.
In an interview with “Filmmaker”, Refn said: “The whole structure of the film came from the Grimm’s Fairy Tales … these characters in L.A. being these archetypes. Carey Mulligan is the innocent girl who stumbles into the woods, Ryan is the knight in shining armor who comes to save her, and Ron Perlman is the midget with the sword. They are all archetypes by design. The idea of making a fairy tale in Los Angeles is what really made me want to make this movie, and I think it’s what makes the movie work so well.”
Well, I didn’t see that coming.
It doesn’t happen often, but after watching the film I immediately went out and bought the book Drive (2005) by James Sallis.
Enough words, the clip above demonstrates how Drive powers ahead of the competition.
