PUSHER (1996)

My director of choice Nicolas Winding Refn's first feature film from 1996.

Without the budget of Only God Forgives (2013) Refn's original film Pusher is a real character driven film with a central performance from Kim Bodnia. As opposed to his more recent work there is a lot of hand held and long takes in this film rather than the smooth tracking shots used later on.


The premise of the story is that Frank is a drug dealer in Copenhagen, Denmark who gets heavier into debt and trouble as the film goes on. The most interesting character to me however is the man he owes money to Milo, who throughout the film has this air of calmness and sympathy towards Frank. However at the end a switch goes and he becomes a different character all together. Pusher 3 a film Refn did later is based on this character so I would like to see that.

In the film there are glimpses of his surreal lighting in a nightclub scene towards the end, but apart from that the main focus is the study of the characters. Out of all the films of his I have seen I have to say I think in terms of development of characters this is one of his best.

I think because of his use of steadicam and hand held footage in this and Fear X (2003) this will be something I can incorporate into my film. I do understand that this is his first film and that directors in this stage are still finding their feet, but there are certain elements that are kept throughout their careers and Refn is no exception.