Drive: Yellow light, red light, blue light, pink light – scanners.
The movie is so emotionally/sexually repressed (all cool, slick surfaces, glazed reflections and valentine-candy-heart cliches) that this over-the-top, graphic-but-artificial RED – it’s not just red, it’s blood – feels like an absurd, joyous, orgasmic release.
“Drive”: Memory Lane « The Third Meaning.
So much film geekery is informed, more or less directly, by the Manny Farber discourse on such action-oriented fare that its cred as ‘termite art’ comes already embossed on its metallic exterior by virtue of its generic/critical positioning even before consideration of the specifics of the individual case. […]
Drive is, then, a contribution to its particular kind of silent-tough-guy, hyperstylized, cool crime film. But what it adds is filigree. It’s a baroque, decadent, intensification of and comment on those aspects of Melville, Hill and Mann that Refn fetishizes, film geek that he is, and it appeals to other film geeks, like me, who share his tastes.
Drive. Second viewing. (The first.) I told myself I was just going to watch the opening scenes again, but I kept going. This time around I find myself enjoying the directing and mechanics even more and the plot/characters so much less. I can’t handle the beach scene. Still, those first 20-40 minutes? That’s some good stuff.
Drive. I liked it about as much as I liked the book, which is to say it’s a damn fine way to pass a couple hours. Excellent opening scene, then putters just slightly. Much slower, quieter than I expected but the supporting cast keeps it alive. It’s like a lot of film noir in that way – much of the movie’s momentum is from the hero cornered, reacting to other people’s plans. Interpretive tip: it’s not about driving cars. Good soundtrack. The movie wouldn’t be the same (wouldn’t be possible?) without it. Gosling’s role makes me think of Eastwood’s roles as the Man With No Name and William Munny, and Delon’s in Le Samouraï and a little bit of Clooney’s in The American.
Mark Larson 