NWR (Nicolas Winding Refn) (2012)

Directed by: Laurent Duroche | 63 minutes | documentary

Nicholas Winding Refn. If this name doesn’t mean anything to you as a movie buff, you are greatly outnumbered. This Danish multi-talented surprised friend and foe (Lars von Trier, if you can believe this documentary) with his award for best director at the Cannes Film Festival for his neonoir action thriller ‘Drive’ (2011), in which Ryan Gosling plays the taciturn stuntman/getaway car- driver Driver plays. Finally international recognition for this director/producer/writer, who sails his own course, but who knows how to attract a steady, ever-growing fan base.

In ‘NWR’, a documentary by Laurent Duroche about the filmmaker born in 1970, we get to know Nicolas well. Alejandro Jodorowksi, director and source of inspiration for his colleague forty years younger, introduces the documentary. Deeply disappointed in the cinema world, especially in American films, which he labels as cancers infecting the planet (“with that retarded Spielberg”), he is delighted to have discovered Nicolas Wending Refn. “He manages to stay pure. He saved me from cinematic depression.”

We follow Nicolas Wending Refn as he lets himself be driven through Copenhagen (he doesn’t have a driver’s license himself). He tells about his visit to the Danish Film Fund, where he has just received money for the follow-up to ‘Drive’, ‘Only God Forgives’. We also see him at work in Bangkok, where he is preparing for this film.

Mother Vibeke Winding attributes her son’s love for films to his dyslexia (Nicolas said he could not read until he was thirteen). Jesper Sorensen, Nicolas’ stepfather, adds that as a child Nicolas was constantly looking to see what something on film would look like. Nicolas himself knows how to captivate the viewer with his stories from his youth: how he liked to shock his parents, posthippies, in his adolescence, but found that quite difficult. “I don’t do drugs because that’s bad. That’s why I went to watch horror and exploitation films to rebel.” At fourteen, Nicolas saw ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ in a double bill with ‘The Hills Have Eyes’. To this day, he calls that first the best film ever. He showed his favorite movie to his wife, Liv, on the second date. Luckily for him, that didn’t deter her.

Nicolas spent much of his childhood in New York, but when he was 17 the family moved back to Denmark. When he was accepted to the Danish film school at the age of 23, he was faced with a difficult choice: he had just received money to make ‘Pusher’. Did he go for a study or did he immediately take the plunge? Everyone thought Nicolas was crazy, but ‘Pusher’ came and made an impression. Gaspar Noé about this in ‘NWR’: “It is remarkable how realistic the drug world has been portrayed by Nicolas. After all, the gap between his own world and the one he represents is immense.”

After ‘Pusher’ came ‘Bleeder’ (1999) and with ‘Fear X’ Nicolas made his first international production. It was (commercially speaking) a huge flop and the film caused the family to become financially bankrupt. Nicolas and Liv spoke candidly in front of the camera about this difficult period. Their openness does not come out of the blue, their financial problems were previously the subject of the documentary ‘Gambler’ (2006) about the same period. Fortunately, the tide turned after ‘Pusher 2’.

Director Laurent Duroche has made a fascinating documentary with ‘NWR’ about a director who knows what he wants and makes no concessions. This way of making films entails certain, big, risks, but only a real talent overcomes them. And that turns out to be NWR. With contributions from Ryan Gosling, Mads Mikkelsen and Zlatco Buric and filming before and during the 2011 Cannes Film Festival in Bangkok and Copenhagen, ‘NWR’ is varied, captivating, sometimes funny and inspiring. Must see.