Rgirvan44
Posts: 18934
Joined: 10/3/2006
From: Punishment Park
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What struck me about Drive was how much the plot also owed to earlier exploitation movies which were being produced in the 1970s. A lot is being made about how the film connects in with Thief, and Leone, and To Live and Die in LA (which has been overlooked I feel when considering this film) but it has it also has its roots firmly placed in 70s exploitation. I am thinking of movies such as the Outside Man, or Sitting Target.
It also has a lot of links to the movies being made in the 1980s by the Cannon Group and Golan/Globus – stripped down crime movies, with ultra-violence and heroes who speak through action, and not words. Not to mention the LA setting.
One key moment in this film reminded me a lot, about a Charles Bronson movie from the 1980s, entitled Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects. People who have seen both films will know what I am talking about here.
There is a strong clue about this connection in the film itself – Albert Brooks basically plays a character that made these types of pictures. It made me laugh seeing him describe what he did in a previous life and the joke about "European Films” in there as well.
The use of violence is interesting. And I am actually surprised at how restrained it all was in retrospect. When reviews have been talking about the ultra-violence, it seemed pretty restrained for most of the time. Those moments where it was shown were used to illustrate a point about the characters.
We see the Driver demonstrate how he can take a life. After that sequence, when he next does it, it is shot in the distance. The audience doesn't need to witness it again. The film uses the violence to show that these are dangerous men, and once established, it happens again, we use our imaginations to fill in the blanks.
What complements the film is a superb soundtrack. Is it just me or do most of the best modern films set in LA have electro/ synth soundtracks? Whatever the case may be, it just works. Again it is all about mood, and feeling.
Refn is also building on his own films. It is hard not to see this film as a spiritual brother of the Pusher trilogy. Those movies also dealt with the lower end of the criminal underworld. The guys who had money, but would never rise any higher. One of the great moments in Drive is seeing a party taking place at a pizza shop. Ron Perlman is in a smart suit and cracking up over something.
Next to him a pretty blond woman looks over with disdain. Anyone who has seen the Pusher films will recognise moments like that, where aspirations and reality collide.
But where the Pusher films had a "day in the life” flavour, Drive goes much bigger and broader in its outlook. It is a film first and foremost about mood. About the light bouncing off of a car, the way the sun beats the pavement, and those moments which you want to last a lifetime.
As to the character of the Driver – I don't believe he existed until the day he came to the garage looking for a job. It is as if nature itself created him fully formed on that day. He isn't a human being. He is a primal force. In fact in one scene there is zero difference between him and the killer Michael Meyers, from the Halloween films. His "face” in that scene I believe is a look at his soul. It is a blank canvas, expressionless. And that is terrifying. It is a moment from a horror film.
The Driver is not designed for any other purpose. He can only express himself through his wheels. Beyond that he barely reacts to the world. Look at how little notice he gives to the state of his jacket throughout the second half of the film. Some have suggested that Driver is being a gentleman when he is trying to woo Irene, an extension of the superhero idea.
I would suggest he simply doesn't know what to do. He has never been in this situation. He is not designed to be in this situation. It would be like taking a car into a lake and expecting it to skin across the water. It cannot work.
One of the best companion pieces for this film would in fact be Spielberg's Duel. In that the bad guy is a lorry. It has a driver, but they are the same thing. You stop thinking of it as someone driving the truck, and just think of it as a single entity. That is what Driver is to his cars.
At the end, I believe he comes to realise that, for as much as the car cannot move without him, he cannot move without the car. They are one and the same. Forever entwined.
< Message edited by Rgirvan44 -- 5/11/2011 3:10:18 PM >
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It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.
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