NP-Nicholas Winding Refn

[David Morris]

Where can this be found?

On Fri, Jun 28, 2019 at 9:11 AM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Refn has a new series (or a 13 hour movie if you like) called Too Old to
> Die Young. Ostensibly a simple tale of a bent LA Sheriff and a up and
> coming Mexican cartel boss it has wide and seemingly encyclopedic
> references and influences: breaking bad, twin peaks, no country for old men
> (I think Refn could direct a version of Blood Meridian--more on that
> later), Kill Bill/Reservoir Dogs, James Ellroy, Taxi Driver, Kubrick (many
> scenes are shot Barry Lyndon style--one in a Mexican whorehouse resembled
> scary paintings of Franz Von Stuck or Otto Dix). There are probably many
> others.It's Weimar on the Best Coast, the end of the world, with something
> coming in the night i.e. fascism
> The acting is stiff, with many long pauses. this is not a show for dialogue
> but of impressions, individual scenes are given their full time to flower
> (Refn and those he chooses to work with are masters of color, music, and
> sound from insects at night, to rippling waters, to the scrape of an axe on
> concrete. the long pauses accentuate the violence and I'll warn all that
> this is one of the most nihilistic shows out there--rape, incest, folks
> burned and buried alive, mass murder, torture. one character surmises the
> rise of eroticized violence. there's plenty
> I mentioned Blood Meridian--there is a character called the High Priestess
> of Death, born out of the desert, who becomes an integral part in the rise
> of the young cartel boss. She is the Judge-like character, the seed of
> destruction and the central pivot. everything revolves around her. she is
> frankly terrifying, even to those she's in with. Women sing narcocorrido
> type praises to her as a defender of women. It's hard to take your eyes off
> her.
> There are many wtf moments in this show--the denouement of a pair of New
> Mexican pornographer brothers, in particular. Barry Manilow plays a part.
> Some of these scenes with these guys are hard to watch, but there's many of
> them I'm afraid.
> Not many in this show is even vaguely sympathetic or honorable:The LA
> Sheriff's office are fascist keystone cops, fathers lust after daughters,
> brutal mothers cocktease sons, women are brutalized, men take advantage of
> the weak or other men, women entice men to commit murder justified or not,
> men's lives are forfeit for a few thousand dollars.
> In a nutshell, it all leads to the belief that only through catastrophic
> violence will innocence be born. and while one cringes from much of what is
> depicted over these 13 hours, the slow pace, the dismal circumstances, the
> at times half-assed buffoonery, flippancy of style and wealth, I do have to
> admit it makes its points well. Let's hope it isn't our future
>
> rich
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