11. Nicolas Winding Refn Loves A Brooding Man Or Ten
Drive. Only God Forgives. Valhalla Rising. All films with stoic male protagonists who talk little, brood much and occasionally lash out at people in brutally violent manner, and all films directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. It's not a stretch to say that Winding Refn has a distinct visual style: his strong use of colour, lingering close ups and long stretches of film where nothing very much happens only to be punctuated by an act of startling violence have all been on display in recent years, for better or worse. Drive was a critical hit, whereas God Only Forgives was panned as a turgid mess even though both featured Ryan Gosling trying not to move his face for much of their running time (although it should probably be mentioned that Drive's screenplay was written by Hossein Amini and Only God Forgives by Winding Refn himself). Though the director's earlier work like Bronson and the Pusher trilogy is more conventional in terms of genre and plotting (and especially dialogue - you can tell even from the trailers that the two aforementioned films are a lot wordier than Drive or Only God Forgives), Nicolas Winding Refn still shows an affinity for the brooding, possibly (probably) unstable male and revels in studying every tiny non-movement of their faces, like Sergio Leone on anti-depressants.