{"id":25138,"date":"2012-02-02T17:16:15","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T17:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.influx.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=25138"},"modified":"2022-06-27T12:58:49","modified_gmt":"2022-06-27T11:58:49","slug":"drive-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/blog\/drive-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"Drive: revisited…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Nicolas Refn’s film Drive<\/a> came out last September we were obviously interested straight away.<\/p>\n

What’s not to like about putting the words ‘existential’ and ‘car’ together?<\/p>\n

Any close reader of this blog will understand that imbuing meaning into cars is what we’re all about.<\/p>\n

But it’s easy to disappear, of course, in a void of pretence – and to project your own fantasies of what cars mean to you – when writing about these things.<\/p>\n

We saw the film at the movies and was pretty unimpressed. Not sure whether we expected a full on action extravaganza crossed with a Euro art-house flick – an impossible mix that would have been bound to fail.<\/p>\n

However it happened, we were left somehow wanting more.<\/p>\n

We had a feeling that the problem might have something to do with time and place and context – and so, we watched it again recently.<\/p>\n

What arises on second viewing is a much more powerful, resonant movie. We found that we remembered many of the lines and the scenes hit by hit – and the most important thing that arises is ‘the driver’ and his relationship to the cars that are his vehicles through his many moral minefields.<\/p>\n

The video below (taken from the DVD extras, I believe), brings out how deeply tuned into the steel the lead actor Ryan Gosling became during the production of the movie – and I reckon there’s something visceral and real about a bloke’s relationship with his motor that resonates.<\/p>\n

Never know, it may turn out to be a classic after all.<\/p>\n

And that movie poster is a bit special too.<\/p>\n