The 13 hour work from Refn has it’s throwaway stretches and astonishingly beautiful stretches—it’s too striking to ignore, and too flawed to be anything but a simple recommend
It’s Refn’s 8th archiveable film—the first 4 are different in visual style—the last 4, starting with Drive in 2011 are soaked in neon and feature electronic Cliff Martinez scores (Martinez started as a Soderbergh guy—Traffic
Refn isn’t the controlling master Tarkovsky is—but there are really impressive sections where it does feel like Tarkovsky directing Bad Lieutenant
Stoic performances– drained—more like Bressonian models—or Dreyer performances from Ordet or Gertrud
Using the cop high beams for neon lighting
Like Drive it’s largely an LA story—Neon Demon–
Incredibly odd Billy Baldwin performance—growling like a stuffed tiger
There are hour stretches between them but a few nice doorway shots
The shot with the rose petal background—a stunner
—episode 10 as a big snake mural on the wall of a bar—it’s very Fassbinder
Long take tracking up and down the execution line
Some of the long takes are almost imperceptibly moving they are so slow—really nice
Marvelous soft focus dissolves in the bar in episode three. You never see the bartender’s face
Love the dialogue “do you have to run?” to which someone replies “No, I can sit awhile. You?” “I’ve got time”. Sounds like most television series. Haha
Politics on talk radio like Dominik’s Killing Them Softly from 2012
Other visual highlights include the lighting on the Korean gangsters hangout, the way Refn will occasionally stagger the actors in front of the camera, the party in episode 6 with neons just pouring in from the outside, the slow motion tracking shot in episode 8 of everyone dancing with Christmas lights
So in 2011’s Drive– Refn has one character (Goslings) that acts and talks like this—here—really every character acts like this with the stoicism and long pauses—maybe Baldwin is the exception
Episode 9 montage like Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point finale
It’s still a exquisite picturesque feat—he’s working with Darius Khondji and Diego Garcia here as DP’s- no slouches—
Refn still needs to slow down and make an 80 minute highlight reel film – there’s a top 10 of the year film or maybe even better inside of the 13 hours you have to sift through.
[…] Too Old to Die Young – Refn […]