Copenhagen Cowboy

[therewillbeblus]

Nicolas Winding Refn's Copenhagen Cowboy trailer

I'm hot and cold on Refn, but after Too Old to Die Young proved to be his best work to date, I'm beyond thrilled to see what he does with another shot at the elongated format. Plus this trailer looks terrific, with some creative visual ideas like the bloody present feeling entirely novel even within the auteur's familiar aesthetic sheen

[Persona]

Had the hardest time getting past episode 2 of TOO OLD TO DIE YOUNG.

Guess I should give it another go.

[therewillbeblus]

It’s got a cumulative impact. I recall that episode being a bit of an elongated detour that disrupted any rhythm established by the first, but the series really fell into sync afterwards.

[DarkImbecile]

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Copenhagen Cowboy

[Computer Raheem]

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Copenhagen Cowboy

I need this injected into my bloodstream immediately

Will say, it's funny how Netflix is making the common mistake of marketing Refn's work within its genre parameters when, at this point in his career, his style makes it quite clear that the show is going to be a lot slower and frustrating than the generic version they would have preferred (though at this point, if you're financing a Nicolas Winding Refn project, you should know what you're getting)

[therewillbeblus]

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Copenhagen Cowboy

I need this injected into my bloodstream immediately

Will say, it's funny how Netflix is making the common mistake of marketing Refn's work within its genre parameters when, at this point in his career, his style makes it quite clear that the show is going to be a lot slower and frustrating than the generic version they would have preferred (though at this point, if you're financing a Nicolas Winding Refn project, you should know what you're getting)

I'm only two episodes in, but Refn continues to demonstrate that he needs the long form of miniseries to capitalize on his talents at unveiling depth with deliberate patience. This is a slow burn of delicious reveals in narrative, characterization, and tone, though you may be surprised that it moves at the speed of lightning compared to Too Old to Die Young (or Only God Forgives, or Neon Demon...) and is perhaps his most economical work yet in finally locating the perfect tempo between generously excessive style and systematic forward momentum. Refn has also remarkably found a strong stoic lead in Angela Bundalovic, who expresses layers of emotion and personality with reticent facial acting, but her alien skills are organically distinguished and profoundly captivating. Even when we get what could be the silliest info-drop at the end of episode two, she sells it without flinching and we (or I, at least) are right there with her.

So yeah, this is definitely a distinctly "Refn pic" but I'd also feel a bit more comfortable (so far) pitching it as a "perverse magical realism neo-noir" to people I know without prefacing the recommendation with a mandatory, "Have.. you seen a Nicolas Winding Refn film before?"

Also, I find it hilarious that at the start of each episode Netflix has a warning of TV-MA for only "language, smoking," excising any note of violence or sexual content… I think Netflix is smart to market Refn's work with a series of striking images whilst feeding his ethos, but now I'm wondering if.. they've never seen any of it? Or is this baffling error actually a cheeky stipulation in NWR’s contact?

[therewillbeblus]

Okay, I spoke too soon... After episode two, Refn immediately retracts from the linearly-focused progression he established to old habits in pointlessly elliptical design informing alienating narrative pivots that dilute the building interest in Miu's character or the story he's trying to tell. Perhaps worst of all, he fills the time by borrowing from his old works but without connecting them on the thematic levels he a) believes he's doing, and b) did before. This goes for retreading material I didn't think was "deep" to begin with, such as the Freudian incestual dynamics in Only God Forgives cultivating perceived roles, or the fusion of corporeal glamour that's satirized as vapid and appreciated as spiritually-significant at once under Refn's own conflicted worldview, which I guess he's postured at with Neon Demon and many things he's done to some degree. But the celestial stuff here isn't fleshed out in any way to earn investment let alone basic understanding of 'what', so there's no emotional power to be found and it all comes off as faux-spirituality. I'm not even talking about Miu's powers so much as Nicklas' whole weird "spiritual" connection with his mother and sister, contrasting with his father's preoccupation with corporeal symbols of toxic masculinity, which takes on an acolyte status that threatens to cheekily render spiritual value meaningless and inseparable from superficial value in our society of moral erosion... But Refn already expressed this far better in his last series, which I think is his magnum opus, and one that takes its time to appreciate dimensions of existentialist-fueled emotion buried under the fatalistic protective walls of physical and psychological aesthetic. No, Copenhagen Cowboy has nothing to say, and that's fine, but it's not really giving us anything fun to do with what it sets up either, and that includes any typical NWR "Cool Violence" too. I realize this is going to be an actual TV series, since episode six ends with the introduction of a key character (name-dropped in the series' brief synopsis, for god's sake) but it would've been better served if stretched out twice as long to fulfill its narrative potential. Anyways, a fine way to spend a few hours, but a big step backwards from Too Old to Die Young and its first two episodes, which serve as promising tone-setters only to fizzle out in the transition to three.

[Persona]

Okay, I spoke too soon... After episode two, Refn immediately retracts from the linearly-focused progression he established to old habits in pointlessly elliptical design informing alienating narrative pivots that dilute the building interest in Miu's character or the story he's trying to tell. Perhaps worst of all, he fills the time by borrowing from his old works but without connecting them on the thematic levels he a) believes he's doing, and b) did before. This goes for retreading material I didn't think was "deep" to begin with, such as the Freudian incestual dynamics in Only God Forgives cultivating perceived roles, or the fusion of corporeal glamour that's satirized as vapid and appreciated as spiritually-significant at once under Refn's own conflicted worldview, which I guess he's postured at with Neon Demon and many things he's done to some degree. But the celestial stuff here isn't fleshed out in any way to earn investment let alone basic understanding of 'what', so there's no emotional power to be found and it all comes off as faux-spirituality. I'm not even talking about Miu's powers so much as Nicklas' whole weird "spiritual" connection with his mother and sister, contrasting with his father's preoccupation with corporeal symbols of toxic masculinity, which takes on an acolyte status that threatens to cheekily render spiritual value meaningless and inseparable from superficial value in our society of moral erosion... But Refn already expressed this far better in his last series, which I think is his magnum opus, and one that takes its time to appreciate dimensions of existentialist-fueled emotion buried under the fatalistic protective walls of physical and psychological aesthetic. No, Copenhagen Cowboy has nothing to say, and that's fine, but it's not really giving us anything fun to do with what it sets up either, and that includes any typical NWR "Cool Violence" too. I realize this is going to be an actual TV series, since episode six ends with the introduction of a key character (name-dropped in the series' brief synopsis, for god's sake) but it would've been better served if stretched out twice as long to fulfill its narrative potential. Anyways, a fine way to spend a few hours, but a big step backwards from Too Old to Die Young and its first two episodes, which serve as promising tone-setters only to fizzle out in the transition to three.

I disagree.

After not liking (Neon Demon, Only God Forgives) / not being able to finish (Too Old to Die Young) a Refn thing since Drive, I was stunned to find myself moved, provoked, and pretty much enraptured by Copenhagen Cowboy, from beginning to end.

It feels to me a bit like Refn's take on a Twin Peaks. There is of course what the title suggests, the juxtaposition of a Western with European and Eastern sensibilities in aesthetics and content. The revolving door narrative structure is fascinating, never truly serial and never truly episodic, miniature arcs connected and overlapping into double exposures of theme and mood. "Trauma" is an overused touch-point in art these days, even the MCU hammers it, but the elliptical, artful and esoteric approach of Copenhagen Cowboy really opened up new possibilities for me in seeing a what a modern work can do to show in a heightened way a broken world and the spirits that are forged into something else from that brokenness. The interplay of the various forces in this show becomes a mesmerizing dance, and without ever feeling the need to explain itself, the weight that Miu carries grows greater and greater as the lives she encounters bring more and more dimension to her journey. There is also something to be said for the show's take on the corruptibility of the transcendent and the consequences of simply trying to exist with agency and purpose. The final episode's title, "The Heavens Will Fall" is a wonderfully fitting and evocative capstone to much of this season's thematic endgame. But this is is Refn at his most tender. There is a purity and nobility at the heart of this show, even as the show talks about how those abstract ideals can in effect be supernatural in the world as we know it and what happens when those qualities are forced to commingle with a darkness that is hard-wired into existence. It also describes pain and cosmic justice in very powerful, pointed ways.

SpoilerShow

There is a point where a character says, "She is not one. She is many." This is cryptic and perhaps could be seen even as meaningless, but for me in the context of what the show has shown up to that point, lands with so much import and quiet revelation, it almost completely sold me on some of the series' very late narrative turns.

The neon lighting infatuation does grow a bit tiresome and the actors are still bound by the strictures of Refn's directing, though I think that actually works in this particular work's favor given the casting approach and the fantastical nature of some of the content. And I felt the characters here were realized by the writers, Refn, and the performers in a way that I haven't always felt with some of his other work. Refn is obsessed with mood and sound and color, and for once I think that comes through in different varieties with the characters here, too. In terms of building a mythology, I am not sure I have seen anything by Refn that performs that act as intentionally as he does here, but in so doing without much in the way of exposition, he has really landed on a world and a means of expressing it that spoke to me very highly of what he can do when his methods of ambient immersion and tonal manipulation have a substantial groundwork beneath them.

So, yeah, chalk me up as one of the small percentage of people who have seen this show and also as one of the even smaller percentage who loved it.

[therewillbeblus]

I would encourage you to finish Too Old to Die Young then, which doesn't really seems like it's going to be anything until it becomes everything, and reveals that kind of emotionality cumulatively as the coldness erodes. That requires patience and open-mindedness and... a good deal of time, but maybe this positive experience will be motivating

[Persona]

Yes, been meaning to finish that one. I got stuck in a big way on the second episode and then when I returned to it, I think I feel asleep and woke up and found myself like five episodes in, ha.

[therewillbeblus]

Yes, been meaning to finish that one. I got stuck in a big way on the second episode and then when I returned to it, I think I feel asleep and woke up and found myself like five episodes in, ha.

I know a lot of people like that second episode, but it's a long departure from the central narrative very early and one of the bits I remember the least, so I don't think it should be taken as indicative of what to expect. I've been meaning to revisit it, but I usually tell people to push through the first two and if you're not adjusting to the show during the next few, make a judgment call