Today I sat in a mostly empty theater in the...

Today I sat in a mostly empty theater in the middle of Brooklyn and watched Drive. When it was over, all I wanted to do was walk alone and think, or watch it again. I left for home.

I’ve been reading a lot of reviews about Drive tonight, most of them carry a not so much unfavorable tone, but rather a disapproving one. Most of the kerfuffle stem from the violent nature of the last half of the film. I do not agree. Though I will tell you that it is worth your time to go and read Erica’s thoughts on the movie, which I respect. Although I will not link you to the snotty The New Yorker review which describes The Driver’s jacket, and director Nicolas Refn as;

“He wears a quilted silver jacket with a gold scorpion embroidered on the back, and keeps on wearing it when the fabric is smeared with gore, but why would a man so clearly defined elsewhere by the spirit of self-effacement take such a risk? It must be because Refn, rather than his hero, admires the kitschy shine of the garment, and the way that—like the savagery, the speed, and all the foul mouths—it folds into his vision of the city.”

Which I don’t find true, and I’ll tell you why it’s not true. Driver is a lonely, private, internal man. A man who is skilled at what he does, sure, but the lifestyle he’s chosen for himself has made him a loner. When he finally connects with someone he takes his singular mindset, his almost childlike focus, or inability to perhaps think and feel and interact on a broad or high level and he applies that to his relationship. (he describes the relationship as “the best time of my life”) When he finds that relationship threatened he does the only thing he knows how to do- react. It’s not that he stomps heads in a gratuitous fashion for pleasure, it’s that in when his back is against the wall he does that only thing that’s instinctually possible for him to do. And it’s not that The Driver is vainly wearing a gore-stained jacket around town, nor is Nicolas Refn reveling in that “kitsch”, it’s that Driver is spiraling out of control while trying to do the right thing. He’s a man on edge, struggling to stay awake, to hold himself back from tears at times. He’s so resolute in his desire to find a way out of his situation that I’m sure it would never occur to him to take off his jacket.

I love films that make you impose your thoughts on the film, instead of letting the dialogue lead you. It’s like a mirror. Examples for me would be Lost In Translation, There Will Be Blood, and another Gosling film Blue Valentine. The films that force you to look at the screen and evaluate your self, which I can say Erica did. She did it correctly, even though I don’t agree with her. The bulk of this above text is a little defense for a film that moved me deeply to think about my own internal struggles, my wants, my desires. The film isn’t perfect, but neither am I, and if the job of the film is for me to look into it, and see myself in some way, then I’d say this imperfect bit of cinema does just fine, with our without my defense of it.