Pusher - A Movie Review and an Introduction to Danish Movies by Andrew Lawrence
"For instance, there was this Turkish guy once. He fucked up and owed Milo some money. So I went over to his place. I'd been there many times before, asking for the money in a polite way, without any luck. Finally, I took a knife, stabbed it in his kneecap and teared the shit up. Sometimes, I'd like to have another job. Believe me." - Radovan
Even though I come from Denmark, I've never been a huge fan of Danish movies. For some reason they've never caught my attention, and I honestly think it's because of how different they are from American movies, witch pretty much is what I watch exclusively nowadays. Being a small country with just 5.5 million inhabitants, our economy isn't able to support big multi million productions either, which means that a Danish movie that would be considered "low budget" in the big movie countries like USA and France, might actually be one of the most expensive films to come out of Denmark in years. As you can imagine, this means that there's almost no room for special effects and big overblown and overproduced CGI blockbusters like the Transformers trilogy and the Marvel superhero movies, which is why Danish cinema tends to be very artsy and independent looking, when compared to what the rest of the world is used to.
Most film critiques would describe Denmark as a country that has a long and respectable movie tradition in terms of existential, realistic and often times depressive and destructive film making, a description I personally found dull and boring for the longest time. I mentioned in my first classic movie review that new things tend to scare me, which probably is why I've never thought about giving my own country's movies a go, even though my taste in films has changed vastly over the last 18 months. However, the more I got to thinking about it, the more the though of being a danish movie blogger that doesn't blog about danish movies started to scare me. As you might be able to tell, I ended up growing more afraid of denying my national movie heritage than I am of leaving my comfort zone, and as a result, I now find myself in the middle of writing my very first Danish movie review.
Danish film studios have been producing movies and television for as long any other studios in the world, but it wasn't until the mid 90s that danish cinema had its big international breakthrough. "Dogma 95" took the professional movie world by surprise back then, and directors like Lars Von Trier (Dancer in the Dark, Europa) and Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration, The Hunt) who spearheaded the movement, have been widely know as two of the world's most talented and artistically gifted movie makers of the last 100 years ever since. Even though the two of them have won 8 awards at the Cannes Film Festival when combined, the movie I'll be reviewing today isn't made by either of them, but by a director who regular readers of this blog have become very familiar with over the last few months, and who also just happens to be a best director award winner at Cannes.
Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, Only God Forgives) made Pusher, his very first feature length movie, back in 1996, when danish cinema had just started garnering international praise. The movie quickly became a national hit, and it ended up spawning two sequels a few years later because of its immense popularity. Refn got off to as good a start as any movie maker could have hoped for, and being one of my personal favorite directors, I thought reviewing his first movie and using it as in introduction to danish movies at the same time seemed like a fitting choice.
Pusher takes place in the danish capital of Copenhagen, where Frank, a small time drug dealer played by Kim Bodnia, finds himself gaining an increasingly high amount of debt to his local drug overlord known as Milo, played by danish/croatian actor Zlatko Buric. As he struggles to raise the required 230.000 danish kroner (about 41.000 USD), Frank suffers from a series of unlucky events and a string of bad decisions made by him and his buddy Tony, played by famous danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, which eventually leads him down a dark path of fear and desperation. As the film's plot unravels and the dangerous nature of the drug dealing business starts to unfold, Frank finds himself in a very bad situation, having lost all his friends and without any means of mending his situation.
The very first thing I noticed about this movie when saw it for the first time, is how minimalistic and straight to the point it is. Refn created it on a budget of 6 million DKR, which only translates into 1 million USD, and this is greatly reflected in the way the movie is shot and edited. In my opinion though, this definitely is a strong positive for the over all result, because of how authentic and realistic it makes the movie play out. Low life drug dealers like Frank and Tony in Pusher don't live a very glamorous life, and the low budget feel of this movie made that undeniably clear. I also found it very interesting to see how Refn, who's one of the best visual directors in the world today, started out working with different camera angles, lighting and sound design.
In terms of plot and story arch, Pusher wasn't groundbreaking or revolutionizing in any way shape or form. It has a very familiar plot with even more familiar and sometimes even overly clichéd characters, but the way the actors and the director told the story makes Pusher stand out from the rest. Bodnia's, Buric's and Mikkelsen's performances feel incredibly grounded in reality, and when combined with the documentary-esque low budget style that Refn shot in, the finished result is one of the most realistic depictions of how it is to live the paranoid and insecure life of a drug dealer I've ever seen. Pusher does to drug distribution what Requiem for a Dream did to drug addiction in my opinion, and this is largely due to Nicolas Winding Refn's great sense of realistic character portrayal and authentic way of adding atmosphere to his movies.
The great sense of well created-ness that Pusher benefits from is another important factor as to why I enjoyed it for 100 % of its runtime. Done to death stories have a tendency to become very boring very quickly, but Pusher's attention to detail and well written script completely kept me from leaving that zone of suspense and believability that good movies create. All its subplots and supporting characters were very trustworthy and interesting in my opinion, something that the wast majority of new movies can't exactly boast of. Two of the supporting character very in fact so well written and well fleshed out that they ended up becoming the individual main characters of Pusher II and Pusher 3, which should give you an idea of how much material this movie has to offer.
My favorite part of Nicolas Winding Refn's debut movie is the way it ends. I mentioned earlier that Pusher doesn't break any new ground in terms of story arch or character templates, and I was legitimately scared that it was gonna end on the same note that all the other "bad luck drug dealer" movies does. However, to my great surprise and indescribable joy, it's final moments aren't just inventive, refreshing and exiting, they're also downright existential, bound in destiny and philosophical. This might seem like very big words for a very small budget movie, but trust me, the final scene of Pusher is one of the best ways I've seen a movie end in a long time. All in all, Pusher definitely is one of the best danish productions I've seen in my short lifespan, and I'm looking forward to watching its sequels and a lot of other great danish movies. It's a solid movie that should give anyone a good indication as to what they should expect from movies that are made in my windy home country of Denmark, and for that reason alone, Refn's Pusher definitely is worthy of my seal of approval. (4/6)
Danish film studios have been producing movies and television for as long any other studios in the world, but it wasn't until the mid 90s that danish cinema had its big international breakthrough. "Dogma 95" took the professional movie world by surprise back then, and directors like Lars Von Trier (Dancer in the Dark, Europa) and Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration, The Hunt) who spearheaded the movement, have been widely know as two of the world's most talented and artistically gifted movie makers of the last 100 years ever since. Even though the two of them have won 8 awards at the Cannes Film Festival when combined, the movie I'll be reviewing today isn't made by either of them, but by a director who regular readers of this blog have become very familiar with over the last few months, and who also just happens to be a best director award winner at Cannes.
Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, Only God Forgives) made Pusher, his very first feature length movie, back in 1996, when danish cinema had just started garnering international praise. The movie quickly became a national hit, and it ended up spawning two sequels a few years later because of its immense popularity. Refn got off to as good a start as any movie maker could have hoped for, and being one of my personal favorite directors, I thought reviewing his first movie and using it as in introduction to danish movies at the same time seemed like a fitting choice.
Pusher takes place in the danish capital of Copenhagen, where Frank, a small time drug dealer played by Kim Bodnia, finds himself gaining an increasingly high amount of debt to his local drug overlord known as Milo, played by danish/croatian actor Zlatko Buric. As he struggles to raise the required 230.000 danish kroner (about 41.000 USD), Frank suffers from a series of unlucky events and a string of bad decisions made by him and his buddy Tony, played by famous danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, which eventually leads him down a dark path of fear and desperation. As the film's plot unravels and the dangerous nature of the drug dealing business starts to unfold, Frank finds himself in a very bad situation, having lost all his friends and without any means of mending his situation.
The very first thing I noticed about this movie when saw it for the first time, is how minimalistic and straight to the point it is. Refn created it on a budget of 6 million DKR, which only translates into 1 million USD, and this is greatly reflected in the way the movie is shot and edited. In my opinion though, this definitely is a strong positive for the over all result, because of how authentic and realistic it makes the movie play out. Low life drug dealers like Frank and Tony in Pusher don't live a very glamorous life, and the low budget feel of this movie made that undeniably clear. I also found it very interesting to see how Refn, who's one of the best visual directors in the world today, started out working with different camera angles, lighting and sound design.
In terms of plot and story arch, Pusher wasn't groundbreaking or revolutionizing in any way shape or form. It has a very familiar plot with even more familiar and sometimes even overly clichéd characters, but the way the actors and the director told the story makes Pusher stand out from the rest. Bodnia's, Buric's and Mikkelsen's performances feel incredibly grounded in reality, and when combined with the documentary-esque low budget style that Refn shot in, the finished result is one of the most realistic depictions of how it is to live the paranoid and insecure life of a drug dealer I've ever seen. Pusher does to drug distribution what Requiem for a Dream did to drug addiction in my opinion, and this is largely due to Nicolas Winding Refn's great sense of realistic character portrayal and authentic way of adding atmosphere to his movies.
The great sense of well created-ness that Pusher benefits from is another important factor as to why I enjoyed it for 100 % of its runtime. Done to death stories have a tendency to become very boring very quickly, but Pusher's attention to detail and well written script completely kept me from leaving that zone of suspense and believability that good movies create. All its subplots and supporting characters were very trustworthy and interesting in my opinion, something that the wast majority of new movies can't exactly boast of. Two of the supporting character very in fact so well written and well fleshed out that they ended up becoming the individual main characters of Pusher II and Pusher 3, which should give you an idea of how much material this movie has to offer.
My favorite part of Nicolas Winding Refn's debut movie is the way it ends. I mentioned earlier that Pusher doesn't break any new ground in terms of story arch or character templates, and I was legitimately scared that it was gonna end on the same note that all the other "bad luck drug dealer" movies does. However, to my great surprise and indescribable joy, it's final moments aren't just inventive, refreshing and exiting, they're also downright existential, bound in destiny and philosophical. This might seem like very big words for a very small budget movie, but trust me, the final scene of Pusher is one of the best ways I've seen a movie end in a long time. All in all, Pusher definitely is one of the best danish productions I've seen in my short lifespan, and I'm looking forward to watching its sequels and a lot of other great danish movies. It's a solid movie that should give anyone a good indication as to what they should expect from movies that are made in my windy home country of Denmark, and for that reason alone, Refn's Pusher definitely is worthy of my seal of approval. (4/6)
Pusher IMDb page here
Pusher trailer link here
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