NICOLAS WINDING REFN, “VALHALLA RISING”

By Lauren Wissot

Valhalla Rising, which stars Mads Mikkelsen (best known for playing the much more suave devil Le Chiffre in Casino Royale) as a one-eyed, mute, enslaved gladiator who joins a group of Viking Christians on a conquest that turns into an existential journey to hell, is certainly not what one would expect from Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn. And that’s part of the beauty of the film. Before this latest atmospheric mood piece containing echoes of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Refn helmed the hyperkinetic Bronson, about England’s most dangerous criminal turned cult hero who never seemed at a loss for words or fists. Prior to that Refn made his name crafting stories from the drug-dealing underworld in his Pusher trilogy (which, incidentally, was Mikkelsen’s launching pad into film). Refn it seems is less like his fellow Dane Lars Von Trier and more like American Steven Soderbergh, both directors in constant motion, striving less to create important art than to simply surprise themselves. And by doing so, they often achieve both.

Filmmaker: Watching Valhalla Rising I kept thinking of certain American movies, but maybe that’s just because as an American most of my touchstones are American. The film felt like 2001: A Space Odyssey with the sound design from The Shining. Also, Malick’s The New World once the characters reach “The Holy Land” chapter. But once again, this might just be because I’m a huge fan of Kubrick and Malick. Who or what were your influences going into production?

Nicolas Winding Refn: Yeah, there’s 2001, a lot of that in Valhalla. There’s also El Topo, the Jodorowsky movie. The film was very much a mixture of the films I grew up watching.

Filmmaker: Was The Shining in there at all? I kept hearing Kubrick.

Refn: Ah, I think probably in the use of non-music — but not so consciously. The music itself was very much inspired by experimental sound like Einstürzende Neubauten.

Filmmaker: Really? I’m a big fan of Nick Cave. (Interviewer’s note: Einstürzende Neubauten’s lead vocalist and guitarist Blixa Bargeld is … Read the rest

NICOLAS WINDING REFN, “BRONSON”

By Nick Dawson

TOM HARDY AS THE EPONYMOUS LEAD IN WRITER_DIRECTOR NICOLAS WINDING REFN’S BRONSON. COURTESY MAGNOLIA PICTURES.

At a time when Danish cinema boasts a large number of first rate directors, Nicolas Winding Refn stands out among his peers for his raw talent and ambition. The son of filmmaker Anders Refn, Refn was born in Copenhagen in 1970 but spent much of his teenage years living in New York, which had a great impact on his cinematic sensibility. He started film school at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, but was expelled for throwing a desk at a wall, one of a number of incidents that got him the nickname “Enfant Sauvage,” or “wild child.” He was accepted by the Danish Film School but dropped out before his studies had even begun. However, when a producer saw one of his short films and asked him to turn it into a feature, he was able to bypass a conventional cinematic education entirely. That film was Pusher (1996), a violent drug movie set on the streets of Copenhagen which drew rave reviews as well as comparisons with Refn’s idol, Martin Scorsese. He followed up the huge success of that film with Bleeder (1999), another unvarnished portrayal of urban Copenhagen that showed a greater depth to his work. In 2003, Refn released Fear X, an unconventional take on the revenge movie, starring John Turturro and written by Hubert Selby Jr., however the financial failure of the film bankrupted him. To pay off his debts, he agreed to complete the Pusher trilogy, making Pusher II (2004) and Pusher III (2005) back-to-back.

According to Refn, making the second and third Pusher movies purely for money transformed his attitude to filmmaking, and we see a reborn director at work in his latest movie, Bronson. The film is based on the story of Michael Peterson (Tom Hardy), a petty criminal infamous for being the most violent prisoner in Britain and who reinvented himself as tough guy “Charles Bronson.” Refn’s Bronson, however, is not a biopic but rather a riff on some of the events of … Read the rest