UPDATE: The video has been removed at the request of the director.
Director Nicolas Winding Refn is not exactly a household name yet, but many people are already familiar with some of his work. The director is responsible for some excellent films like Bronson, starring Tom Hardy, and last year’s great neo-noir flick Drive, starring Ryan Gosling, which made mine, and many others’ top ten lists of the year.
Lately, he’s been extremely busy working on Only God Forgives as well as prepping other projects like I Walk with the Dead, set to star Carey Mulligan, a prequel to Maniac Cop, which he plans to produce, The Button Man, which he is looking at directing, and he even hopes to bring Barbarella to the small screen.
Today, we have a documentary about the man himself entitled NWR and directed by Laurent Duroche. It lasts about an hour and includes interviews not only from Refn, but also from his friends and collaborators like Alejandro Jodorowky, Ryan Gosling, Mads Mikkelsen, Gaspar Noé, Zlatko Buric and others. Though only an hour in length, it covers the director’s entire filmography right up to Only God Forgives.
When asked about his new film in relation to his others, Refn said:
“This one is very much a continuation of that language. It’s based on real emotions, but set in a heightened reality. It’s a fairy tale.” He also notes how the film changed after his experience working with Gosling on Drive: “I wanted to do a Western, a straight up gangster movie after Valhalla Rising, but all that changed.”
After seeing Drive, I’m very interested in how he’s going to follow it up. He’s shown that he has great skill behind the camera, so Only God Forgives automatically becomes one of my must-see films for the near future.
In the meantime, on top of everything else on his plate, Refn has a short film for Gucci premiering on September 1st at the Venice Film Festival.
